I Read Too Much

I need to be honest here, I haven't had the passion to write lately.  I feel like all of my words have been stolen from me, that while I've had many things to share and reflect upon, the ability to pen them has been out of my reach.  Why?  We are in a season.  I am in a season.  This season started in October of last year, but we didn't feel the full force of it until spring of this year. Since then it has been one opportunity after another to learn more of God's grace and goodness.  People, He is so very good, and He is faithful.  For that, I am confident that He is still creating a good work in me (Philippians 1:6. Despite that, we haven't been relieved of the lessons this season is teaching us.  In fact, the most recent couple of months have brought even more trials our way. And with those, so much more heartache and pain. However, I am finding peace. I have no idea where it is coming from.  None.  Oh, that is not true at all. ...

Today is Thanksgiving.  Here in our neck of the woods it is cold, damp from 24 straight hours of rainfall the day/night before, and now dark (thank you daylight savings time for that reality at such an early hour ~ ok, fair is fair, mother nature has a thing or two to do with that as well...I digress!).  I need to be honest here - I didn't wake up today ready to feel thankful.  In fact, I woke up today not ready for today to happen - at all.  Oh, it isn't because I don't love Thanksgiving, I do.  In fact, of all the holidays we celebrate this one is my absolute favorite.  (Yes, Chrismas and Easter are wonderful, but I love those for completely different reasons.) Why? You might ask.  Well, for these reasons here.  Today my Littles are off with their dad meeting their new step-family (yes, he's getting married! To a woman that I actually admire and think is a great person and will be a wonderful influence and help in the girls' life), my family had...

I want to be completely honest with you.  I struggle with who I am.  I struggle with what I am supposed to do and what I am supposed to be.  There are days when the answers seem so incredibly clear and days when I struggle to recite the ABCs.  I hate putting my self out there like this, but something about today warrants the transparency.  My greatest and biggest fear is that I won't be good enough.  I am so epically afraid to fail that it consumes me.  In fact it drives me to ends that I cannot even believe I find myself.  This desire not to fail brings me to fighting for justice in regards to myself and my children, even when there isn't a fight there. People, I loathe this.  I abhor the fact that others judge me and my parenting and my way of raising a family simply because it is not the same way that they would do it. I hate that because of this I lose relationships due to lashing out and protecting my own. I do that.  I will fight...

Over the course of the years I have been both brutally honest and transparent as well as cloaked in self preservation.  Tonight, well, I have something to share that I've held in since elementary school.  Something that has ate away at the fabric of my being so deeply that at times I wonder if it isn't the truth of who I am simultaneously fighting the person I chose to be.  I will not name the person as I know their words were never meant for my eyes; only my  mother's.  I cannot say how I stumbled across the words, so fervently scrawled across the perfectly lined paper, but I did.  I think I even subconsciously heard that I should never be allowed to see the words.  Yet, I was a child.  Once fraught with curiosity that I chose to seek the words that held an omen that I have fought my entire life never to become. You see, the person who penned these was not truly in anger with my being, but more so with the choices of th...

Previously, as in just the last post, I told you about my insane love for Christian books that turn God's truths into practical application.  I think I may have also told you that I tend to read 3 to 4 of these types of books simultaneously.  I can't help it.  Perhaps it is the fear of actually finishing the book or it's the fact that I get caught up in a certain writer's prose that  I need the distraction of another's for the words to really sink in; and by distraction I simply  mean thought process.  I have so much that I want to write about.  Yet much of what I want to share I cannot - for fear.  Not fear that you random people will backlash, but fear that those I know will take my words and twist them so incoherently that the point will be lost in their interpretation of my thought.  Yes, this does weigh on me. I want to be candid. I want to throw out the words, the feelings, and the struggles I am having.  I want t...

The other night I was in a great deal of emotional pain regarding this topic of being a step-mom.  I've had a couple of days to think about it and calm down.  You see, I know that no matter what, God has my back.  That even though I may not have wanted a divorce and as surely as divorce is not what God wants, it happens.  And because it happens, God gives people second chances at forever.  Sure, nothing is ever the same, but that doesn't mean there can't be something new and special and in some cases a greater blessing because of it. However, another thing I know is that it is going to be work.  A LOT OF WORK.  I know that; just like all the other things that can go wrong in life, all the other battles, struggles, and lessons to learn from in life, this is just another example.  I also know that God doesn't send us out into the world without first giving us the means to find the answers.  In fact, He gave us the answers before we even knew ...

I am not normally the kind of person who seeks out talk radio.  I've tried.  I mean really, really hard to listen to it, and in the listening to it I've tried even harder to like it.  Some days I can say that I did (like it), others, well, not so much.  I listen to a local Christian radio station. I have had many times when just at the right time the right song would come on the radio and speak to my heart concerning a particular situation that I am dealing with.  So naturally, today, as I was driving to work (much later than normal because I had an appointment) and heard the topic of the mid-morning talk radio I was ecstatic.  I mean, here was something for me to learn from.  Something for me to take and grow from.   Something that I knew would benefit me in the future.  The topic?  101 Tips on being a Step-Mom. I would be lying if I didn't say about 5 minutes into it I didn't want to change it....

This year the days leading up to Christmas have been a bevvy of mixed emotions for me. Yes, last year I was wreck.  You all read it, here, in black and white.  Yet when I read back over some of those posts I wonder where that woman is who had so much faith.  That woman who clung so hard to the hope that just maybe she would receive a Christmas miracle after all.  It didn't come.  I secretly, well, not really, I publicly believed in it.  Don't get me wrong I still believe in miracles.  I still believe that God is in the miracle making business, I just know that that wasn't mine.  Despite all that, despite how I feel and the sadness that overwhelms me most of the time, I cannot actually forgo the season, as much as I may have wanted to.  I have my Littles to think about.  They, these precious gifts of mine, do still believe in miracles and it is my duty to provide them with that.  So, I set out this year to do the best I could ...

I know that Thanksgiving was a few days ago and, true to form, I am late on this post.  I have been a bit quiet lately, but that will be remedied soon enough.  If you were to ask 10 random people what their favorite holiday was most likely half of them would say Thanksgiving.  It's true.  One of the most overlooked of all holidays is the one most people hold near and dear.  It is my absolute favorite holiday.  Now, don't get me wrong I love Easter and Christmas for altogether other reasons, but Thanksgiving is that one day a year when family gets together and there is no pretense, just the joy of being together.  This was my first Thanksgiving without the ex-Mr.  I want to tell you that I spent it in a funk and couldn't move and was debilitated by the grief, but the truth of it is, I wasn't.  No, in fact, I have to tell you it was the best Thanksgiving we have ever had.  The reason?  We all got to be who we are.  You know how w...

and all through the house.  Not a creature was stirring....WAIT????!!!! WHAT???!!! Heaven's yes they are stirring.  I can't get these littles to calm down to save my life.  You'd think I bought them each a case of pixie sticks and a 2 liter of Mountain Dew with a Monster chaser and sent them upstairs.  Now, I know, it is all just nervous energy.  The excitement of starting another  school year.  The joy of getting to see some of their friends again after a long summer of not seeing them.  I get this.  I do, really.  After all, it hasn't been THAT long ago since...ha!  Who am I kidding?  It has been 18 years since I've had a "first day of school" - in the traditional sense at least. This is a milestone year in our house for many reasons.  For happiness' sake I'm going to start with the positives.  They are all tear jerking in some manner or form.  I'll shed tears tomorrow.  I know.  Yes, I...

I did it!  I finished one of my goals.  I took a giant step towards the first day of the rest of my life.  I finished my degree.  What started with small steps, one to two classes at a time, at a traditional college, ended with a runner's sprint to the finish line at a school with a program geared towards working adults/professionals.  All I can say is - where was this school all those years ago?!  Despite the time it took to finish this goal, I can say one thing with certainty; it came at the exact time it needed to, at a precise moment in time.  I knew this was going to be a year of many firsts.  Truth, I've already experienced a lot of them.  So far, this is my favorite!  And it isn't so much the completion of this goal that makes it so.  No, it is all the love and encouragement that I received for accomplishing this goal.  You really need to know - I am so blessed.  I have the most amazing group of people I g...

I had a good day.  Work was one of those days where you are so busy you don't realize that almost 10 hours have gone by until you look at the clock in shock.  I think this is a blessing.  I got some great news today at work too, some that made me squeal with joy.  Naturally, I felt like celebrating.  So, what does a single (yet still legally married) woman with 3 children do?  She takes them out to eat.  Yes, my social life is the envy of all.  No, really, my girls are gorgeous!  But so is their mom - Ha!  We went to one of my favorite places - Buffalo Wild Wings.  What?  Of course!  No, I am not one of those girls who cuts a piece of lettuce into 5 niblits before she can eat it, heavens, why waste so much time?!  It was a fun time out.  My middle little was especially excited, there was a ball game on.  Yes, she is a child after my own heart. She loves college hoops a...

I see him, in my mind's eye, sitting there at the kitchen table like every day before reading his newspaper, drinking his coffee, and smoking his Winston.  The radio is softly playing in the background, turned to some county station that I am sure no longer flows on the radio waves.  The faint smells from the pot of coffee brewed earlier in the morning, while the rest of the house slept peacefully.  The gentle hum of the fridge that was undoubtedly older than I was, at the time. The roll top desk nestled against the north facing wall, under the sliding window, the telephone hanging prominently on the wall to the right of it.  The desk surfaces covered in an organized chaos that only made sense to the one person who managed its contents, my grandpa. Grandpa was a good man, strong yet soft at the same time.  He loved us all, but I find a small bit of comfort in knowing him longest.  I also weep at that fact for it made many more memories to h...

Have you ever been to war?  I'm not talking about war in another country, against a soldier that the government sets you against, either for the right reasons or the wrong.  Before I go any further I should state that I am proud of those who fight for my liberties and that I have heroes in my family that have fought beside the heroes in yours, to which I have honored and supported both.  Now, back to war.  The war I'm talking about is the invisible one that is waged in a person and the war that is waged within a family.  Regardless of intentions there is always a loser.  No one side will reign victorious, especially in the later.  Though some battles may prove victorious, the war as a whole will not.  Well, actually in the former there is a winner, its picking the right side that determines the victory.  If, a year ago this time, someone would have told me that a year from now I would be in the middle of a battle so horrible I wouldn't k...

...love and hugs and kisses and smiles and warmth.  A grandma is strength and softness and kindness and praise.  A grandma is a gift.  My grandma came to visit this past weekend.  It isn't often that I get to see her anymore.  You see, she can't drive these days and relies on those around her to get her where she needs to go.  I'd be that someone, but she lives in Chicago, and well, I don't.  Just like the rest of us, grandma is getting older.  I think the hardest part about seeing her so sporadically is that in my mind's eye she is still 50 years old and healthy as can be. When I was younger she used to live next door, this is where I spent most of my time.  I probably still would if she were closer. But I digress... Grandma used to have a sewing room.  I was never destined to be a seamstress like she was, but how I loved to tinker with the scraps she left behind.  I can remember one fine day, in 7th grade, where I was bound...

This past Thursday we celebrated Thanksgiving with my family at my mom's house.  There is just something altogether magical about the day. OK, I admit, magical is not the word to use; perhaps special is a much better choice.  I love Thanksgiving.  Lets start there. Thanksgiving is so many things to so many people.  To me, it is a day that holds no pretense.  What does this mean, you ask.  Simply, it means that the day is filled with no expectations.  No expectations of what did the gift cost, does my hair look the best, is my outfit going to meet approval, will I say the right thing, will I do the right thing, am I loved?  No, Thanksgiving is that day when you shed all those expectations and reflect on the fact that; you had the money to buy the gift in the first place, you haven't had to fight a cancer that robbed you of your hair, you have the opportunity to be clothed completely, you get to spend time in conversation with others who...