Harsh Truths

So the other day I went for a drive and in my scattered thoughts I'd given thanks to God, aloud, for blessing me with another beginning... my job with American Airlines/Envoy. I apologized for letting Him down in my other beginnings, and acknowledged His love for me by continuing to provide me with new opportunities despite the person I usually end up being. The negative Nancy, who gossips and talks badly about the coworkers who seemingly do less and expect more than others. It really is what drives me into stress and ultimately hating a job so much that somehow I end up leaving. (It's taking a LOT to admit this, openly.)

I asked Him though, in my talk with Him.... to guide me in the right direction! 'Lo and behold, my Father told me "try gossiping about the positive things." That slap stung! But it also filled my heart with such joy because it seemed like such an easy solution to an ongoing problem in my life. Sing praise about my coworkers... find the good. Spread it all around - like CORONA! :D

I laughed openly, out loud. So consumed am I in my own efforts and hard work that all I can do is see the negative and what others DON'T do.... and find ways and people to complain about them to.

And today - an article published about the Pope that solidified the belief that change is needed in my life. The Pope said, today, "The sin of sadness is the seed of the devil, that inability to make a decision about one's own life, but OK with looking at other peoples' lives in order to complain about that, not to criticize but to lament about oneself. It makes me think about so many of us, so many Christians who live in this state of sloth, unable to do anything but complain about everything."

Change is needed in MANY lives - but the only one that I can be solely responsible for is my own. Starting here, within.... and moving outward and onward in a more positive light.

He's not telling me I can't gossip. He knows too well that my mouth is huge :P He simply told me to gossip about the positive. Why hadn't I thought of that???

So awesome that when He speaks, you have no choice but to listen. <3 p="">

Memories

I posted photos of you on Facebook yesterday, Daddy... pictures I forgot I had of me and you and all the things we used to do. But even those pictures don't tell our story. And those pictures surely don't describe the unfathomable grief and the mountains I've climbed just to live life without you.

I wish I knew how to explain to people that you were the air I breathed. My shining star. My biggest idol (and also my biggest fan.) My first love. My best friend. Ride or die. Other half. My daddy. And as an only child, all of these relationships were intensified x10. You hung the moon and were my sun.

I remember you every day like you're still here. I'm forever locked inside age 16, when I lost you. I'm still waiting for you to take me hunting/fishing/camping. I wanna find fossils with you. I wanna lie in the back of the truck and watch falling stars. I wanna mow the back yard while you sit and watch me. But most of all, I just wanna talk to you. Ride beside you in the truck on a sunset drive, counting deer on the side of the highway.

24 years since I've seen you. God, that number is a slap in the face! I've grieved long enough that I don't remember the bad anniversaries anymore... I don't count the Novembers when you were diagnosed. or the Januarys when they said chemo was a waste. Or the Mays when you slipped away. Instead I silently remember the November 23rds when you're another year older (in Heaven.) And I celebrate the Thanksgivings and Christmases with you in my heart - because we loved those holidays the most.

I do my best to tell the kids about the type of man you were and the things we'd do together - but it makes me sad because they'll never REALLY know how much you would've loved them and they, you.

The one blessing I can count is that I married a man that resembles you... He has your kind heart, your strong, forgiving hands, and eyes that hold the world for his little girls.

I love you SO much, Daddy... I hope that over the vast emptiness of time and space, you can feel that.

He Found Me

I have denied my Father. That is my confession. I was blind, but now I see. . .

I have confessed that I throw wild pity parties and scream and cry while driving alone in my car because people have nothing but excuses for why they don’t want to hang out or do things with me. I feel abandoned. I feel alone and lonely.

Tonight, I took a drive to connect with Him. I often go with the intent, and end up sidetracked with thoughts and can’t focus… but tonight I gave Him all the glory. Tonight I thanked him for getting me home safely from Dallas. Tonight I thanked Him for the opportunity with this new career…. Like winning the lottery with the flight benefits and travel opportunities and the doors that it will open for me and my family. Connecting us to life, and actually living it!

It was in this conversation with my Father that a window was opened wide. He shared a gorgeous sunset with me as He helped me see that all those times I felt abandoned by friends, I never looked at Him and realized that He was with me. All the times I walked the dogs while muttering under my breath that no one ever goes with me and I’d love to have conversations with someone…. I could have easily talked to Him, instead. All the drives with no one in the passenger seat, He was there.

I apologized profusely for the heartbreak He endured, watching His child suffer for the time it took her to realize all of this. I apologized for abandoning Him and denying Him… for my selfishness… My soul took a deep breath tonight and I felt for once that He had filled my lungs, completely. A wave washed over me, it felt like. I told Him I was human, only human…

I forgot how good it felt to latch onto that connection with Him and focus and have a good conversation and actually hear Him when He speaks. I do hope that I can focus myself and spend more time with Him. My Father. My God.

How Quickly They Pass

The years...

It was October 2002, just 17 years ago. Saying it seems like it was SO LONG ago.... but living it, it happened yesterday. Yesterday, I gave birth to Stevie Lynn. Yesterday, I took her to Kindergarten for the first time. Yesterday, she graduated 8th grade. Yesterday was her last first day of grade school. But Thursday? October 17th? Thursday will be the last day I celebrate a birthday with my "little girl." Thursday she'll be 17. Next year? Next year I'll be "celebrating" her adulthood. Dear Lord, just typing it puts the biggest lump in my throat.

I was asked once, when Stevie was younger and before I was married, what the hardest part of single parenting was. My answer, was that I had no one to share her milestones with. When she bursted out in those uncontrollable infant giggles, there was no one to catch the love that spilled over from my heart. When she got her first tooth, rolled over, crawled, or walked for the first time... no one was around to love those moments as much as me. Carrying all of that happiness was HEAVY!

Now that I've survived single parenting... and I've had the love of my life to share my girls with since Stevie was 3... the hardest part of parenting, hands down, is learning to let go. And it starts so much earlier than Senior year of high school. It starts at age 8, when your child tells you that the sparkly shorts (that she would have LOVED a week earlier) are now too sparkly. Or that the overalls your daughter wore to school religiously were no banned from her wardrobe because a child called her farmer girl. It starts at age 11 when your middle schooler is learning to find who she truly is... when she develops a love of a certain taste of music or a certain style of clothing that you might not necessarily agree with but must embrace because it's your job as a parent to support certain choices and choose battles wisely.

Learning to let go is such a delicate dance. You don't want to give too much freedom too early because you're still worried so much about their safety and their maturity and they're ability to handle the independence and responsibility that they crave. It's urging your senior to apply for scholarships without focusing so hard that you ultimately drive her into a negative mindset where she wants to forget college all together. It's reiterating the importance to your 12 year old that she's in 6th grade now and math class requires a little studying if she intends to pass... and learning to walk away and let her either study or fail and learn from that mistake. It's NOT giving up on your 9 year old because she's the youngest and you're just too tired to care anymore!

The hardest part of parenting is not the loss of sleep and the financial instability that accompanies diapers and formula and daycare... The hardest part is YOUR test at the end... where your children are facing finish lines right and left and you're standing there waiting to see if they'll cross them and keep running or if they'll fall short and need you to pick them up and dust them off so they can try again. It's loving... not too much but just enough that they will always want to come back for more. The hardest part is having to do all of this without a book of instructions... but rather just by tasting, and feeling, and praying. Praying that you'll get it right eventually.

Steady Wings

…and oh, here it is… the struggle and heartbreak of watching you steady yourself on your wings. Your feathers are ready, your fuzz has faded all away… I can do nothing more than stand back and support you with encouraging words and urge you to try. Just try. Keep trying.

                In October, you turned 16. It was SUCH a privilege for me as a parent to be able to afford a vehicle for you. As a parent, there are goals in life that we make for ourselves… one was to take you to Disney World when you turned 5 (little did I know it’d be Disney PARIS that you got to see!) Another was to make sure you got a car on your 16^th birthday. I also knew that with that car, I’d want you to embrace responsibility and appreciate it much more than I appreciated my first car. I wanted you to feel the pride of earning it/paying for it yourself. I wanted you to know what hard work felt like, because it feels good. So, while we made the initial purchase, we left room for you to pay on a loan with a paycheck that we’d encourage you to pursue started the day of your 16^th birthday.

                It was such a delicate dance… I needed you to know that getting a job was important. I wanted you to know that it wasn’t so much that we needed the help of your contributions to your own expenses (because we can afford those.) I was watching you in your shy and introverted state, afraid to encounter people and conversations with strangers for fear of everything. I wanted you to find confidence and power in your life. I knew, my love, that you would be just fine. I was also terrified that I’d push you too hard and rather than embrace all I was trying to help you achieve, I’d just turn you away from me.

                That day in the parking lot, when I took you to your first job interview… It was such a piercing blow to my heart to see that tear roll down your cheek and your voice crack when you said “Mom, I can’t go in there.” I wanted to drive you quickly away from there and cover you in the comfort of your blankets and hug you and tell you that I understood and I’m sorry. I also knew that running from your fears was the last thing you needed and I had to stand my ground and urge you to get out of the car and go in! I watched as that blonde headed guy approached you as you waited and told you to smile, that everything would be okay. I whispered to God in that moment and asked Him to calm your fears and if it was His will, to bless you with this opportunity to grow.

                The day you shared the news with me that you’d gotten the job, was overwhelming! I truly know what it is to feel my cup runneth o’er. It spills out my eyes and down my cheeks and with every beat of my heart it just keeps coming! I felt privileged that you took me out, alone with you to share the news with me first – before anyone else. As if you knew that maybe I was the only person in the whole world who would celebrate that moment with you the most. My God, I love you!

                Those first weeks of employment, I watched you slowly emerge from your shell. Each new day that you went in, you walked a little taller until the day came when you didn’t need to linger in the passenger seat for those extra minutes.

                December came, and with it the pending date for your driving test. We practiced and planned and prayed and that first time came and we showed up early and I crossed my fingers so tight while you were out with the instructor and when you came back and she said you’d gotten some things wrong – we were both so disappointed. You were SO excited about being able to drive to school and take your friends to lunch and I was SO EXCITED for your independence. It was ok, though… We both agreed it was safer to find these mistakes now and approach them with caution and treat them as a learning experience and come back in a week. The second time you tested you were much more confident and ready and you passed with flying colors. Now you’re driving yourself to and from school and to and from work and to and from events like the carnival, and movies with friends, and the mall. You… you’re flying.

                Tonight, late at night while all the world is sleeping and I’m hidden away in my small room here at work, I thought to myself that you’re needing me less, and it was a sharp ache in my chest. I thought how even if I wanted to, for old times’ sake, take you to school… you’d decline because you’d want your car available for lunch with friends. I think sometimes about how you’ve got 1 year left of high school. Sometimes I walk by your room in the house and imagine what it’s going to be like to not see you in your bed because you’ll be in your own apartment or doom room for college… Sometimes I wonder if you truly know just how much I love you.

                There was a time in my life when I wrote poetry. The last poem I ever wrote was for you. “I cannot write for you. Nor can I write about you, for you are my poem. You are the perfect combination of words that I could never find. No man-made definition could ever describe you or tell your story. God told me a secret once in the form of a life. He named her Stevie. It was the best secret I’d ever heard.”

The Deepest Pain

Every now and then, you read some divine blog post, or see a Facebook status update that hits home and really humbles you. We've all been there - lost in our own seeming despair, thinking things couldn't possibly be any worse and then you're hit with the reality that there are people around you with sorrows much larger and you stop and almost punch yourself in the face for being so naive and selfish. That was me, today. Even now, hours later, I've got a lump in my throat and blurred vision as I listen to music and pour my feelings out on to this blank canvas.

I once knew a girl. Have a photo of her at one of my childhood birthday parties. We grew up in a small town together, so it isn't too hard to keep tabs on the basics. A couple of years ago her oldest little boy was diagnosed with a terminal illness. An illness I didn't quite know anything about. Heck, I hadn't ever even heard of it! But when I read her news, I googled and stared in disbelief at the things they'd all endure together over the coming years. I knew I'd never know the full weight, but my heart hurt for her nonetheless. 

Mind you, we're not besties. We've grown into two women who are friends on Facebook but we don't get together, our children don't play... We simply just keep in touch. However, she is a mother as I am a mother... There are days I whine about how complicated my kids can be and how they devour my patience and I wanna ring their scrawny necks and I can't wait for school to start!!! And then there are days like today when I read what feels like the first real post of hers that showed any type of personal emotion... a crack in her armor where her light seeped out and I caught a glimpse of her unimaginable courage mixed with the deepest of sorrows and I'm still struggling to make sense of it all. If I had a superpower, it would be to heal the children. His innocence alone doesn't deserve the weight he has to bear.

I shared her post with another friend whose son was born with a condition that she was unaware of while pregnant. She shared his diagnosis with me early on, and I'd like to think that I held her hand, virtually, from her early stages of becoming a mother learning to deal with this obstacle in her life. What a blessing her little boy is, and I'm so SO overwhelmed with joy that what she, at one time, thought was the end of the world - has finally figured out that it was just the beginning of an entirely different world and that it wasn't bad! Distance has prevented me from meeting any of her four children since they've been born, but social media has allowed me to follow her journey.... from our time overseas together when she was but a newlywed, to the momma of four that she is today. 

I also learned of another mother whose soul is bared to Christ as she watches her child fight cancer... All I can do here is ask for a prayer or two for her because I won't reveal who she is or the trials she's faced in life because she's a strong, brave, personal warrior with deep pains that she carries with class, and elegance. 

"Often, it's the deepest pain that empowers you to grow into your highest self."

For those mothers who will never see a cure... for those mothers who will never stop fighting... I pray your faith never waivers, I pray your miracle comes in the way that it is meant... and I pray that you all know that you're loved, and thought about, and supported, and not alone. Know that your story inspires others, and your strength is a glorious example that we should all strive to emulate.

  

Hiraeth

Tonight, I took a drive with my daughter. It’s not the first time we’ve taken a drive together… but it’s the first time I felt “it.” We recently discovered the most amazing spot to watch the sun set. Last weekend, we went to this spot but it wasn’t a spectacular sunset because there were no clouds in the sky. So we sat there, in silence, watching that fiery ball disappear behind the hills far off in the distance. The wind blew through the open windows of the car and I felt a bit of a lump in my throat because we were experiencing an end together. We stayed there and watched until the last sliver of the sun was gone. We stayed until the clouds turned from orange, to yellow, to gray… and then we came home.

Tonight, though… tonight there were clouds in the sky. We gobbled half our dinner and rushed to the car and raced to the spot so we wouldn’t be late watching the sun turn the clouds those fiery pink colors that we so enjoy… We opened up YouTube and we looked for music to set the mood and we rode in silence with only the music playing between us. I looked over and I watched her as she watched the trees pass and she looked out at the sky and in that moment, I was happy.

We got to the spot just as the sun hit the tops of the hills. Rain was falling far in the distance and a blurry rainbow appeared. We sat in silence, still… the wind rushing through our open windows again  on the top of the world and we simply… were.

When the sun had set, I asked my daughter if she wanted to go home, or if she wanted to take the long way. She left the decision to me, so I chose the long way. Normally, she’s one to want the windows up because the wind blows her hair all over the place. Tonight, I smiled from the inside as she rolled her window all the way down and took her hair out of her ponytail and let the wind destroy it. Mostly, I just watched her…. And I remembered.

I remembered being her age… I remembered sitting in the passenger seat as my father took me on sunset drives. I remembered the windows down and my hair blowing all around my face. I remembered the vivid, dying daylight colors and the deer on the side of country roads and the cooling temperatures as day faded into night…. And I prayed… I prayed that my daughter was committing to memory these small, but large memories that brand the heart, so that someday, when I’m gone…. she will have these moments of hiraeth that will feed her soul.