sadness...

My closest cousin had a terrible calamity in his family this week.

He had to let his beautiful son go into the precious arms of Jesus, only two hours after his birth. 

We are so, so sad for the whole family.  I am sick for them.  I cannot imagine what must be going on in their minds.

Ashton was very sick in utero with cystic kidney disease, but we were all praying and holding out hope for a miracle.  For whatever reason, his miracle came on the other side of this life.

Sadness.

I bathed Moses and my little girls and washed my hair tonight to cut some of the mad-dash chaos down in the morning. As I was thinking about what I would wear tomorrow, I thought about my cousin's wife. She's beautiful and strong.  I wonder how she is functioning right now, days after childbirth, preparing for the funeral.  The hormones alone... I am praying for her over and over and over again. It's breaking my heart.

These two have taken hits for the past year, one thing after the next.  I have watched them pick up the pieces and move on repeatedly trusting the Lord to lead.  It's terrible to witness.  I have been in that dark and lonely valley.  I was there for a long time.  It's harder than it seems.

Please pray for them.  It sounds cliché, but Jesus is more tangible in the darkness than any other time.  He is bigger and stronger and more powerful when we are small and weak and helpless.  Pray that they do not lose heart.  He will heal the broken places, but the healing hurts.

lvb

Recovery

I don't think I can do it today. 

 I feel mean.  I feel hostile.  Baby's crying. Dog's barking. TV's broke.  Bank account's broke. Everyone's mad at me.  It's 9:25 AM. Now there's some error message that keeps popping up at the top of the screen. I'm about ready to have a total freak out.

I don't even want to do it.  What I want to do is drop the blinds, put my earplugs in, and get back in my bed.  I want to stay there alllllll day.  But I can't.  I have all these kids and this insurmountable mountain of responsibility to tackle today. 

There is a big pile of laundry on the living room floor... all mine.  I have to deal with it before anything else.

Its a really good thing I don't drink because I have the potential to be a serious drinker. It's just in me, waiting for me to cross that line. I know that because when I feel like this, I think about mixing up a cocktail.  These women on TV that start the day with a cocktail, I get it.  That tells me that I am fully capable of being that girl, except for grace. God help me... I'm weak.

The Baptist church is starting Celebrate Recovery in a few weeks, so they are doing a series to prepare the church for the influx of souls that will seek refuge in our church.  So the preachers asks, "What are you recovering from?" At first I thought, "These poor drug addicts, meth addicts, alcoholics.  They have such screwed up lives.  Only God can help them.  I should do something to help."

The more he talked, the more I looked at my own screwed up mess.  It looks good from the outside, people.  It really does.  I wish you could've seen my hair yesterday.  It looked so good!  But I am a mess.  I have problems, and I try to cover them with my great big optimism and faith.  I heard someone on the radio talking about nurturing the inward beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, and I got tears in my eyes.  I am so far from that... so, so far.  (But the hair counts for something, right?)

He says, "The first step in AA is to admit that you can't control whatever it is."

I wrote on my paper, "Money.  Food,  Anger." 

I can't control our money.  I can't control what I eat.  I can't control this wave of insane anger that takes over me. 

There. I admitted it.  Now what?  Do I need to go to Celebrate Recovery?  I'm thinking about it.  If only I had an extra couple of hours each week to go to the meetings.  If I thought it would make a difference, I'd really go.  But I don't believe it would help me.  Some help I'll be for the poor souls that really believe in it. 

What's wrong with me...?

I am overwhelmed. I need help.  I need God to help me. 

I'm not sure I can do this today.

lvb

Empty House

It's a curious situation that I find myself in today...

The little girls are in Emporia.  The big girls are in Richmond.  Dale and the boys are at the Legends, and the babies are napping. 

I am alone.

All alone.

As the door closed behind the boys, I found myself in a little bit of a dilemma.  Sitting down on the floor with Moses, my phone sucked me in to the wretched Facebook time suck.  It was only for a few minutes, but when I realized my situation, I got to work! 

Picked stuff up, wiped stuff off, cleaned stuff up, put the baby to bed, hopped in the shower, and boom.  Here we are.

I adore my family.  I live for them. However,  It's just it's a rare moment that I find myself not in high demand. 

No hustle.  No bustle.

No cooking.  No cleaning.

No questions, no snacks, no drinks, no diapers.

No lists.  No search for missing shoes.  No diplomacy.

It's just me, all alone with my thoughts, savoring a moment of blissful quiet.

My busy life is a happy one, even when it's grumpy and frustrated and harsh.  There is an underlying joy that overshadows those dark days.  Jesus is light and salt. He is good and kind.  His love makes it aaaallll worth it. 

Which makes these moments such a gift, because I know they are from His hand.  Even though no one sees, and no one really knows what goes into all of this, He does.  He takes care to tend to my needs with delicate precision.  Thank You, Lord.  Your love is amazing.

lvb

Time is ticking away

Every time I talk to someone that I know only on a casual basis they say, "So how are you?"  My classic response is, "We are good!  Just busy.  Always busy..." 

I hate always busy.  I do! Let's be clear about something.  My life can't be not busy.  I have two teenagers, two adolescents, two grade schoolers, a toddler, and a breastfeeding baby.  As of today we have 12 pets.  I am responsible for feeding nine other people three times a day which is twenty-seven meals a day.  That equals like five hundred dishes.  Plus there are a thousand loads of laundry to do, and about a million questions to answer... every day.  Not to mention the diapers, the baths, and the cleaning.  That's just what happens inside these four walls! I don't prepare all those meals, or wash all those dishes, or do all that laundry.  You know I'm dramatic.  I still have to manage the chaos even if I'm not solely responsible for it!

I am a homebody.  If I could just stay here all the time I'd be as happy as I can be, but I can't.  Dale is always saying, "We can't keep this kids in the house all the time."  That's what I really want to do, but it's not fair to them.  They need to get out and meet people and see friends, even if it means I am driving back and forth to the city four times a week.  It's best for them.  I do have to remind myself of this pretty often.  Sometimes I have to remind myself that it's best for everyone if don't stay in my room all day long.  Ha! 

We are enjoying the fast pace of the summer.  Today was the first day of our summer term.  It's funny to hear the kids talk about how fun summer term is, since it's just half days of school.  I think they like the structure more than they realize!  It gives them something to get up for in the mornings and then a free afternoon to look forward to when the work is done.  I like it, too.  After Moses was born I had trouble getting back into my groove of teaching everyday.  It's nice to get back into the swing of it!  I love teaching.

On a side note, I've had some anxiety the past few days.  You know the kind where you can't get a full breath so you're yawning all day long trying to get that big breath?  I have limited my caffeine, I've been working out, and there isn't anything pressing that's sitting on my chest... Any ideas on what it could be?  Is it hormonal?  I've also been waking up in the morning sweaty.  Weird.  I'm too young for menopause, right? 

hmm...

lvb 

Busy busy busy!!!

It feels so much better to DO STUFF.

The past months, I  mean year, I have been sort of living in survival mode ... doing laundry because I have to ... cleaning up but not really cleaning ... making meals, but not great ones... at the end of the day sitting with Dale playing games on my phone for hours. I have been blowing through the days just trying to get through them.  There are the occasional good days, of course.  Not that each day wasn't a good one, but my... performance as the manager of all things domestic was not good most days. 

Now the baby is sleeping hours and hours now.  The preschoolers are entertaining each other.  The girls are doing a lot more cooking.  I am finally getting all the balls in the air again!  Hahahaha.... don't judge me.  It was an analogy to juggling, and you knew it!

SO anyways... the very mention of not really reading my Bible was enough to compel me to get my Bible out.  I think about this all the time. Living life with a Biblical worldview colors everything.  The whole data-in, data-out is huge when you are raising a village.  Every detail of this life goes through the filter of what would please God.  I MUST be in the Word daily in order to rightly prove what is good and true and not some societal law that is really insignificant.  I MUST read the Bible to the children and in front of the children daily in order to establish it as our foundation!  It's absolutely critical.  I intend to do this very thing!!

On the side of all things lovely... here is the lampshade I bought at the thrift store for two dollars. Forgive my photography!  It's not on my agenda to become a photographer. You get the idea. :)

 What I did was rip off the decorative paper.  Underneath was a clean white slate.  With hot glue and some fabric that I found in my workroom,  I completely covered the shade with a single smooth piece of fabric.

 Next I cut out a million circles of fabric by hand with some dull scissors. Each circle was folded into quarters and glued onto the shade.  It was easy and turned out to be so lovely! 

My next project is to do something to this lamp to make it worthy of this lamp shade!

Just one more thing while I'm here! Check these happy girls out at Forever 21.

Now go and DO SOMETHING!  You'll feel so  much better.

lvb

Church

Today I took the kids to the Baptist church here in town for, potentially, our last Sunday. It made my heart sick.

I grew up in the church that raised me. By that I mean the people there visited my mom in the hospital after my birth. They attended my birthday parties growing up. The kids that were in the nursery with me were also in youth group with me. It felt like home.

To this day after attending churches for almost 20 years, I have yet to experience anything comparable. Fremont Calvary Temple was close, but that was a long time ago. It grieves me to think that my children won't have the same experience. They've not known a church family, not in the way that I did anyway. 

The mentor chaplain warned us that we would have a difficult time fitting in at a church because of Dale's work. His schedule doesn't accommodate typical church attendance, so we have to go on our own. The kind of work he does goes unseen, and therefore it goes unacknowledged. It's not that he needs accolades, but the camaraderie of fellow ministers is hard to come by.

I was playing air piano in church this morning along with the worship team and it nearly brought me to tears. I have these gifts that sit by the wayside. It perplexed me. I have this neeeed to play and sing with no outlet.

All that to say this. I have this amazing family. Everyone I need shares my blood or is kin by marriage. And yet sometimes I feel like I don't have a home. :(

Lvb

HEEEEEEEYYYY GIRLS!

I am starting to feel alive again.  Seriously.  I go so under after I have a baby.  Like, I cleaned my kitchen this week.  It was dirty.  It took hours and days, and I still haven't wiped out all the cabinets.  But I want to, see, that's the difference.  I scrubbed the floor on my hands and knees and cleaned the windows with last year's hand prints on them. It's so much better in there.  You should come over.

I am getting creative again.  The drive to create something is taking over.  I actually bought some stuff to redo at the thrift store today.  They are just lampshades, but I am doing something that is not baby or child related, which is like coming up for a breath after AAAALLLLL THEEEESSEE  MONTHS!

I miss writing.  I think about writing every day.  I bemoan the fact that I haven't written anything in months almost everyday, sometimes out loud, sometimes not. And hey, here I am!  Writing!!

I think about reading my Bible all day long.  I grab snippets from YOU VERSION most days, but it's like eating a cookie for breakfast and nothing else the rest of the day.  Boo... not enough.  Jesus knows.  He knows me too well.  His grace burns hotter in my soul when I'm honest about the wretched worm that I am. And I am.  Wretched.

You are on my mind. :)

The things that energize me are all coming to fruition.  Thank you Lord for a breath.

I may have found a narrow path out of debt.  It will be work, but not the crash-diet-for-five-years type of work that I usually lay out for myself.  It's doable; pray for me.  This money... strings me up by the throat.

For my first project, I am making the lampshades, and I am super excited to do it after watching Sista do it so successfully last week.  I will post pictures if I make it back to this chair before next year!

Thank you for always coming back.  Your loyalty is inspiring. 

xoxo

lvb