Some times, no matter how chaotic life gets, no matter how many things don’t go the way you planned, no matter how much there is to do in a short amount of time…

…you just have to take a step back, breathe, and realize how very very blessed you are.

Which is what I just did.

And there’s no better motivation than the realization that it could be so.much.worse.

Until next time…

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This is how I spent my Saturday night.

Carving pumpkins.

I’m not a fan of halloween, at all, nor am I a fan of carving pumpkins, but the kids are.

(and let me point out that I am not the designer of the pumpkins, I am simply the carver.)

Now, perhaps you’re wondering why there are four pumpkins for our family of three.

Are you?

Or do you just think that I am overly ambitious?

I can assure you it has nothing to do with being ambitious.

It has everything to do with the fact that four seems to be a number that keeps popping up in my life here of late.  Four nerf guns, four pumpkins, four cups of hot chocolate, four glasses of juice…

Four.

Ok, so I know what you’re thinking… it’s because someone else is hanging around and makes our little clan of three now have four, right?

Nope.

Kinda close, but not really.

Yes, there has been a new addition to our lives.

While I’m not engaged as some of you have guessed, I am dating someone.

Shocked?  No?  Really?

Because I am.

He kinda came out of no where, really, but here’s what you might find a little funny.

He lives right around the corner from me.  He lives next door to a house that I was at four times a week during softball season.

I’ve driven past his house thousands of times in the past four years, and yet, I never knew that he existed.

Kinda funny, right?

More than funny, it’s really only something that I can pull off.

However, he comes with baggage.  The cutest, most adorable baggage known to man.

And so the reason that four keeps popping up in my life is because there are now FOUR of them.

Two of his.

Two of mine.

Stair steps, really as they are all 2 and a half years apart.

It’s chaos, but I’m getting used to it.

I’m used to picking out and making things fair for two, but pumpkin carving was a bit interesting last night.  I had to pick out four pumpkins that were close in size so that there was no fighting.

Guess what?

There was still fighting, so he, the genius with kids that he is, had them all line up to draw straws and flip coins, and arrange it so that every one was happy.

And they all were.

And when they were bored of the carving, the four took off to partake in the nerf gun wars that have become an intrical part of our lives, I sat there at the table finishing the scooping, the carving, and the sorting of the seeds so that I could roast them.

I made him sit there with me, even though I know that he wanted to be involved in the war.

Because he’s awesome with kids like that, did I mention that?

My kids adore him.

But I made him sit there with me.  Because four minutes to talk at a time, in between four children, is about all the time that we get.

He’s the first man to meet my kids in almost two years.  He’s sweet and funny and majorly good looking.  And he cooks.  Seriously.

Which is good.  Because I don’t.

And he was brave enough to go with me when I took my youth group, 13 girls ranging from 15-5 to see High School Musical 3.

So there’s my news.

I met someone.

He makes me us very happy.

Until next time…

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Most of you know how much I adore my church and the people that accompany it.  I do.  Not having any family in the area, they are my family.  And you know how they say you can’t pick your family?

I learned in Sunday School that you can’t pick your church either.  If I had any amount of energy at all, I would look up the Bible verse that states how you have no control over where you go to church, but that God does.

But I have no energy.

None.

And I’m churched out.

Revival was this week.  Revival was needed, if for no one else, me.

The theme was frogs.  Whereas I once didn’t mind frogs, I now have had too many frogs.

The Lord has pointed out the frogs in my life over and over again in the past four days, almost beating me with the frogs.  (Lord, I asked to be hit with a 2×4 when I pray for obviousness.  How in the world did you mistake a 2×4 with a frog?)

But I am aware of the frogs, don’t want to spend another night with them, working on getting the frogs out of my life and a 101 things checked off my to do list all the while adding 101 more things to the list.

It’s a vicious cycle.

I feel bad for saying that I’m churched out.  (Pastor Man, if you’re reading this, it has nothing to do with the quality of the services, the content contained within, etc.  Don’t freak.)  I think it was just the additional thing to do within the week on top of soccer games, football practice, and work.  And at my church, you can’t just show up before it starts or leave right when it’s over whether you want to or not.  Church is a social setting and I’m social.

Therefore, even if I don’t want to be social, my children do, and bed times are pushed back because I have to wrangle in two kids that are quite content running around the parking lot with their friends, in the dark, because they don’t want to go home, complete homework, bathe and go to bed.

I can’t blame them.  But in my mind, I want them home, homework completed, bathed, and in bed sooner than later.  It’s Thursday and we’re all dragging.

And by dragging, I mean dragging.  My normal perky Matthew is anything but perky and my morning beast, Samara, is even more of a beast.

Me?  I probably shouldn’t be allowed to mingle with the real world prior to consuming massive amounts of coffee.

But Thursday means that the kids will go with their dad tonight and I can have some me time.  After Thursday comes Friday and our little singles group (there are a whopping three of us) are going to see Fireproof because apparently we would like to revel in the fact that we didn’t save our marriages and I’m sure I’ll bawl my eyes out.

And then I have plans on Saturday.  They might invovle wine.

I think these three days will rest me, will give me time to think about revivial and I’m going to be ready for church again on Sunday.

Because despite being churched out, there is no where else on earth that I would rather be then in the company of fellow believers who encourage, lift me up, pray for me and make me laugh.

Until next time…

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Today, I attended the funeral of a man that was on fire for God.  It was obvious and he was the nicest man that I’ve ever met.  He always smiled and up until his last breath, he was telling others about Jesus Christ.

I didn’t know this man for very long, although at age 90, he’d touched many lives, mine included.

He greeted us at the door on Sunday mornings, wearing vibrant colored ties and jackets.  He always had a smile.  He had a way of making you feel welcome.

The message that was delivered had the title of this blog post, “Death is real and we have an appointment with it.”

We do.  We’re all going to die.  We may not know when, but we’re all going to die.

I’m not afraid of death, the death that this man had encountered last Thursday.  That death, I’m okay with.  It means that I have fulfilled the purpose that the Lord intended for me and I’m going home.  I’m cool with that.

What I am afraid of is a spiritual death, one that removes me far from my walk with the Lord and unfortuantly, it’s all to easy to flirt with that death.

As I listened to those that knew him far longer than I did, telling those in the sanctuary what he did in his life, what he accomplished and the lives he touched, I was planning my own funeral.

Morbid, I know.  Incredibly morbid, but something that I think I needed to ponder today.  In a society where we get so wrapped up in the World and not the Word, I need to determine what people will say about me when I’m laying in a casket, on display, and people are paying their last respects.

I want people to talk about the mother I am.  I want people to admire the way that I lived my life.  I want people to talk about my heart for God, my walk with the Lord, my passion for Christ.

I want people to say that I’ve made a difference in their lives.  I want to know that when I get to Heaven, there are going to be people there that I influenced even though I never met them face to face.

It’s a tall order.  I need to work on something and get some things straight.  I need to start LISTENING to God, becuase He’s talking to me, but I’m too busy to listen.  I’m in my own little world, doing what I want to do and will do so until I get “caught” and go running back like a dog with my tail between my legs.

I know that He’ll scoop me up, just like the father that He is, and forgive me and let me start over, but why do I have to let it get to that point?

Yesterday, when I said things were on the up and up?  They are!  Things are good.  Things are where I want them to be.  But are they where He wants them to be?

With on thing that’s going on, I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is.  I know that I am exactly where I’m supposed to be.  However, there are other things going on in my life that I know are not where He wants me to be, but it’s where I want to be.

And I know that.  I knew it going it, yet I still did what I wanted to do.  But I don’t want to walk away.  I don’t want to.  I’m kicking and screaming.

And much like we learned yesterday in church, when Pharoh asked Moses to pray for the frogs who had invaded everything to go away and Moses asked when, Pharoh responded with “Tomorrow”.

Tomorrow?  I would want the frogs gone TODAY.  But the frogs in my life?  I’m right up there with the Pharoh.  Tomorrow.

Now I understand where Pharoh was coming from.

The problem is, we’re not guarunteed tomorrow.  We’re only guarunteed today.

And if my funeral was tomorrow, while there would be niceties as I’m not a horrible person, there would be frogs all over the place.

And at my funeral, I don’t want frogs.

So I’m off to contemplate a little more and spend some time with the Lord.

He deserves to hear from me more than He has been.

Until next time…

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It’s amazing the difference that one week makes.  Seriously.  Just one week ago, I was melting down.  I was throwing in the towel.  I was giving up.

I did not have the strength to go one more day and fight the spiritual battle that faced me, the one that continued to come back over and over again even though I would lay it down day after day after day.

I didn’t have the strength, the desire to continue to take my children all over the face of the planet, or leave this house for that matter.  I hated myself.  I hated being around me and I melted in a very big way.

And then?  Right after I wrote that post, I started to prepare my lesson for the youth.  We were starting a new series and it was all about spiritual battles.  It was about going AWOL on the Lord.  It was about why we ignore the battles and why we shouldn’t.

The lesson coupled with lots of hugs from children who I see as my own in many ways lifted my spirits.  Emails and IMs from the kids upon my return home, thanking me for the lesson, telling me that they enjoyed it, speaking to me as someone who was respected helped even more.

This week was no easier than last week.  In fact, additional stress was added with the influx of designs all coming due at the same time.. additional projects at work, a soccer game thrown into the middle of the week, the trip to the doctor with Matthew and his ear and the trip to the doctor with Sam and her finger… and then there was the added stress of getting my car back on Friday… with only two hours to return a rental, get my car and then get back to the doctor with Sam.

But I did it.

The same messages have been repeated to me in one way or another over and over again this week.  Some through phone calls from friends, some from IMs from my youth, some from my children, and some from bloggers.  Encouragement came in the form of tweets and comments.

And help.  Lots and lots of help from my church family and another single mom at church who happened to see my blog on Facebook and respond to me.

When I couldn’t rally myself, others did.

Today, our former youth leader was back in town and while I was at the altar she came and asked if she could pray with me.  I told her, through the tears, again attempting to forgive myself, that I didn’t even know what to pray for anymore.  So she began to pray.  The most amazing thing happened.  She didn’t know of any of the struggles that I’d been going through.  She knew of none of the events of the past week or the past few weeks.  But her prayers did not reflect that.

As I prayed in agreement with her, the weight began to lift off my shoulders.  And  I knew that something had changed.  I knew that I prayed hard and sought the answers that I needed because I was tired.

When I first began going to church, I would come home from church, barely able to keep my eyes open.  It was a sign of exertion on my part, and a sign that I had been working through many feelings, thoughts, and emotions.  I’ve felt the same way in the past few weeks that I did when I first started going to church, when I first started seeking the Lord.

My hope, my faith is restored.  I already know what I have to do to get back to where I was.  I know that it can be done, because I did it before.  I’ve done it many time, but normally on a much smaller scale.

I mentioned to several people that I feel as if I needed to completely melt so that I could be in a form that I could mold myself into who I want to be, who I long to be, and more like Christ.

And today?  Nothing’s changed.  Except my outlook on life.

I’m not alone even though I WANT to feel that way.  If I take a step back I am one of the most blessed people on the planet.

And I am a Child of God.

What more do I have to be?

Until next time…

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Y’all, I have to tell you. I am walking around with a HUGE hardened heart right now.

I’ve admitted it which alleviates part of the problem, but fixing it is another story. Honestly, I don’t think I’m ready to fix it but I’m sure the people around me, those who know me the best, wish I would hurry up and get over it.

I am a people pleaser by nature which often results in becoming a human doormat and at some point in time the last few weeks I decided that I no longer wished to be a doormat.

I’ll admit full responsibility when it comes to being a doormat. Someone asks, I do.

But now, I don’t want to be a doormat anymore and those who are used to wiping their feet on me and trampling all over me, don’t like it. Nor do those who have never treated me as a doormat because now, the “me” attitude that has overtaken my mentality is affecting all that are involved.

Friends, it’s not pretty.

At all.

I don’t like me right now. I don’t even want to be around myself, but my heart is so hard that I don’t even know what to do about it. Short of pray, and my prayers have been short, and less than enthusiastic.

And today, despite all the things that God was telling me during the service, I didn’t want to listen. It was if I was sticking my fingers in my spiritual ears and saying “la la la la la” as loud as I could.

In fact, I even refused communion, the first time since the 8th grade when I took my first communion that I have ever done that. But I believe in confessing before communion and I couldn’t bring myself to confess.

For the past six weeks, I’ve seen this coming on and for the past six weeks I have carried my sorry little butt up to the alter and confessed over and over again and have asked over and over again that He soften my heart, that He take these resentments that I seem to be harboring away and no sooner does service end, something else happens and I slip right back to the place that I have been trying so desperately to escape.

I’ve spent far too much time crying, an act that I believe is needed at times, but leaves me worthless when I’m done, and I’m just over it. Yet, I spent even more time crying today at church.

I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve lost faith. Not total faith. I still know that my God is a mighty God and that He can do the impossible, but I’ve lost faith that I will stop feeling this way anytime soon.

That frightens me. My “me” attitude frightens me. The passion that I once had that seems to bring more resentment now frightens me.

Yet, I don’t know what to do about it.

Rarely do I ever pull the “single mom” card but here of late, I’ve wanted to. I haven’t yet, but the desire to shout out to someone, “I’m a single mother and it’s only me and I can’t do that for you because I’m barely keeping my head above water right now as it is.” But when I respectfully decline offering my help to someone, because I physically CAN’T take on any more, I feel as if I’m letting someone down or as if I need to readjust my priorities.

And secretly, I wish, just once that someone would come to me and say, “Heather, I know that you’re really busy right now, is there anything that I can do to help?”

Knowing myself as well as I do, I would probably say no, my stubbornness getting in the way of ever allowing someone to help me, as if that would be admitting failure. But the joy of knowing that someone actually wanted to help me, just to be nice, would send me over the top, restoring the hope in humanity that at one point in time, I had.

And asking for help? I hate it, but I’ve done it. I’ve come to the conclusion, many times over, that I can’t do it all and that I HAVE to ask for help. And I do.

I know that people aren’t supposed to cater to my every whim or do things the way that I want them done. But communicating with me would be appreciated. When it involves me, it would be nice if someone would just keep me in the loop. And I’m so over people volunteering me for things. To agree to do it is an invitation to let someone down or fail and to decline makes me appear as if I don’t want to help.

So, this vicious cycle keeps going on in my head, and in my heart. And all the turmoil of emotions are like rocks tumbling around hardening the outside of my heart.

And I hate it.

Just verbalizing all of this in this post has helped some what, in being able to see just how angry I am, at no one thing or person in particular, but me.

And maybe all I need to do is forgive myself. Maybe all I need to tell myself that it’s okay to NOT want to be a doormat, but to learn to better appropriate my time and my efforts.

Maybe all I need to do is accept the fact that I don’t have to be everything to everyone and that it’s okay.

Maybe I need to sit down with God and talk about the current state of my head and heart.

I know that there’s a wonderful, beautiful heart buried down in there. I know there is. I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it. I’ve loved it.

And I want that heart back.

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The other night a friend sent me a message that said something along the lines of “did you ever have a day where you questioned everything?”

My response?

“Yeah!  Tonight!”

And it was so true.  I was stuck in my own head for most of the day questioning everything in my life.

Questioning things like:

• my ability to drive well
• my parenting skills
• my coaching skills
• the type of Christian I was
• was I the youth leader that I should be?
• Am I really supposed to be a youth leader?
• An evangelist?
• whether or not I was a good writer
• whether or not I was a good employee
• if I really did know all that I said I did about the techie stuff

But the biggest thing that I questioned was the location of God during all of this.  Where is He?  Why is He standing idly by while I’m over here trapped in my own mind?

And then I questioned whether or not I should really be upset by the piddly little happeneings in my life when we have people who are losing their homes due to hurricanes, those who have lost their loved ones in a war, mothers losing children, children losing parents, and all of the other things that I see on the news and in the community that surrounds me.

But, I know that if it’s important to me, then it’s important to Him.  I know that.  I’m confident in that.

One small hurdle that I’ve overcome.

So, after my little pity party, I spent some time with Him.  I think it’s what He’s been trying to do all along but I was too caught up in my own life to realize that.

In our time together, I went down my list of greivances.  I told Him what I wasn’t keen on and things that I would like to happen.  I might have mentioned that I would really like to do it my way, but that I would do it His way.  (I always like to be honest with Him, ya know.)

In the end, I’m not sure that I resolved anything of paramout proportions.  The things I was facing and questioning in my own life are still here today.  And they will be there tomorrow.  They aren’t things that I have control over, which sucks, in a way, because I like to have control.

Don’t we all?

The difference in where I was a few days ago and where I am today is that while I would like to have control, I know that if I can’t, I can have faith that there is someone far more qualified than me to handle it.

We can’t blame God for suffering of any kind.  We just can’t.  He doesn’t CAUSE the suffering… we do.  Satan does.  But He doesn’t.

But He uses that suffering for His good.  He uses it to draw us closer to Him.  He uses it so that we can extend grace to others.

I’m not trapped in a world of doubt today.  I don’t doubt my knowledge, my abilities or my faith.  And depsite the gloomy weekend that the weather forecasters are predicting this weekend, I’ve got my own forecast.

Bright.  Sunny.  Happy.  Spirit filled.

I like my forecast a whole lot better.

Until next time…

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Labor Day weekend for me means a trip to a local state park with 10 other families from church.  It also means laboring.  Which always strikes me as odd.  It’s supposed to be a break.  And while I have two children that are more than capable of helping, they don’t.  I can’t wait until they take their children camping and realize just how much work goes into camping.

I seriously think they think we hop in the car and go.  I know they don’t know the amount of planning and coordination that goes into a little trip to the woods.

This trip started out really bad.

To the point that less than 30 minutes after we left, I was ready to come home.

Know why?

I wrecked my car.  My new to me SUV that I was so excited about taking camping for the first time because we wouldn’t have to have kids sitting on pillows or blankets.

It was packed perfectly.  Everything had a spot.  Of course it did… since I bought it I’ve been arranging the camping gear in the back so that when the time came, it was just a matter of loading it up.  And it worked just the way that I planned it.

But because I had 5 gazillion things going on in my head I failed to realize that just because the lane next to me was moving doesn’t meant that mine was.  I got up close and personal with the van in front of me.

And of course, there’s a very small dent in his bumper and my car is sitting in the shop.

I was less than 5 miles from my house, on a major road, thereby proving the statistic.

And feeling REALLY stupid.

Fortunately, we’re all okay.  And the car can be fixed.

My pride was the only thing that was bruised.  Three days with no internet and no cell helped fix that.  Not totally, but alot.

And I’m glad that I went, although I don’t think that I had much of a choice.  I called Pastor Man to let him know that I wasn’t coming (because coming would require me to ask for help) and he said that I needed to call another family that hadn’t left yet and see if I could hitch a ride with them.

As I called, I prayed that they would say they couldn’t… after all, they are a family of 5.  But, they were hauling their camper and could fit us and our crap in the car.

So off we went.

And we had a blast…

I didn’t miss the phone.

I didn’t miss the internet.

I kinda missed Twitter, but not much.

And I was reminded that I am exactly where I’m supposed to be because my church family took care of me, from offing me a car to drive, advice about a body shop, feeding me, cooking for me, hugging me and reminding me that I’m not stupid.

I can deal with almost any feeling except feeling stupid.

So, I’m going to end this here… because I have lots of pictures to share with you… and then I have mountains of laundry to do and fold while I watch the taped segments of NKOTB on my DVR.

We went Fairy Stone hunting (there are these stones that look like crosses… and we found many.. and now they are all over my desk…) but Samara didn’t find any at first.. she was a little bummed…

Matthew and I being silly….

You might wonder why my family of 3 has two tents… well, my site contained 7 people… me, my kids, and lots of other kids.  I had two of the youth group members bunking with me.  The little red tent in the back housed the boys and the bigger one housed the girls.  I have my dining tent so the youth group and I could sit up there and play cards until their parents made them go to bed.

And the flamingo?  It’s an “in” thing… I had to be invited into the group to proudly display the flamingo at my site this year and I can’t believe I even knew where it was, let alone remembered to bring it.

We canoed.  Not my thing, but I’m glad I tried it.  At one point in time Dr. M told me to just sit still and not row at all.  I was scared that I would get distracted and flip us over.  And Samara had no faith in me, whatsoever.

The beauty of going with a group of people is that I can’t give this to Matthew. But other men at my church can.  He canoed… and loved it.

He also kayaked and loved it….

Miss M and I stuck with the little ones and took them on a nature hike.  Miss M is a wealth of knowledge and the kids (and I) learned alot!

We even found horse shoes, which we compared to our shoes…

And… when I took six kids to the lake (yes, I did), our fairy stone sandcastle won third place.

Not that I’m competitive… but I really think we should’ve taken second….

Today, after everyone else left, there were three families that stuck around to spend some more time at the lake, none of us ready to come home.

It was then that I truly came to realize just how blessed I am, and no matter how much I labored this weekend, no matter what happened to deter my time of fellowship, it was worth everything.

We’ve added more memories to the book that we will carry with us for a lifetime…

Until next time…

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I am not afraid to send my child to school for fear of school shootings.  I’m not afraid to get on an airplane for fear of it crashing.  I am not afraid to take teens to a rock concert for fear that I will have a heart attack.

I’m not afraid of anything that may result in death.

I am not afraid of dying or death.  Period.

Would I miss my children if, God forbid, someone decided that today was the day they would take their anger and agression out on their school?

Of course I would.  But I am of the mentality that “when it’s our time to go, it’s our time to go” and there’s nothing I can do about it.

I know many things about God but the biggest is that His name is not Heather.

Knowing this, I know that today could be my day.  Today could be the day that He calls me home.  Are there things that I’ve not yet accomplished in this world that I would like to?

Absolutely.  The red/blue combo in Guitar Hero is on that list among other things, like remarrying, having another child, and seeing NKOTB in concert… heh.

And honestly, who wouldn’t rather be in Heaven than here?  Bodies that are free of sickness?  Mansions?  Jesus?

Yeah, it’s a no brainer.

But what I fear more than death is how people will remember me.  Perhaps it’s conceited to wonder if people will miss me when I’m gone.  It’s a thought that I’ve had and, if I’m truly being honest, I struggle with confidence and wondering if I am a functioning member of society or just a waste of space.

(I don’t really think I’m a waste of space.  I know that I serve a purpose here on earth and that I will be here until I have served that purpose, at which time, I’ll be called home.)

Wow.  I could’ve eliminated the first few paragraphs of this post, because the last two sentances summarized what I was trying to say.

Anywho, back to my fear.

I fear that my children will not understand why I made certain decisions or that I’ll be judged for them.

I had a child when I had just turned 20, before I was married.  To a man, in hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have married…. for no other reason than I wasn’t ready to be married… but then again, I wasn’t ready to have a baby either, and that happened.

I struggled alot and grew up fast after Matthew came along.  There were times that I had to get creative to make ends meet or to get them something that they wanted and I vowed that I would make it all happen no matter what I had to do.

I was having way too much fun on Twitter last night and clicking links that I would see and ended up on the blog of Rodney Olsen in which he was talking about the Sad Life and Death of Dolores Aguilar.

Rodney posted an obituary of Dolores that has been circulating the internet and went so far as to research it on Snopes to insure it’s validity.  (Do you all know about Snopes?  Because all those forwards about missing children and people in parking lots?  Yeah, totally busted on snopes.)

Here’s what Delores’ obituary says:

Dolores Aguilar
1929 - Aug. 7, 2008
Dolores Aguilar, born in 1929 in New Mexico, left us on August 7, 2008. She will be met in the afterlife by her husband, Raymond, her son, Paul Jr., and daughter, Ruby.

She is survived by her daughters Marietta, Mitzi, Stella, Beatrice, Virginia and Ramona, and son Billy; grandchildren, Donnelle, Joe, Mitzie, Maria, Mario, Marty, Tynette, Tania, Leta, Alexandria, Tommy, Billy, Mathew, Raymond, Kenny, Javier, Lisa, Ashlie and Michael; great-grandchildren, Brendan, Joseph, Karissa, Jacob, Delaney, Shawn, Cienna, Bailey, Christian, Andre Jr., Andrea, Keith, Saeed, Nujaymah, Salma, Merissa, Emily, Jayci, Isabella, Samantha and Emily. I apologize if I missed anyone.

Dolores had no hobbies, made no contribution to society and rarely shared a kind word or deed in her life. I speak for the majority of her family when I say her presence will not be missed by many, very few tears will be shed and there will be no lamenting over her passing.

Her family will remember Dolores and amongst ourselves we will remember her in our own way, which were mostly sad and troubling times throughout the years. We may have some fond memories of her and perhaps we will think of those times too. But I truly believe at the end of the day ALL of us will really only miss what we never had, a good and kind mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. I hope she is finally at peace with herself. As for the rest of us left behind, I hope this is the beginning of a time of healing and learning to be a family again.

There will be no service, no prayers and no closure for the family she spent a lifetime tearing apart. We cannot come together in the end to see to it that her grandchildren and great-grandchildren can say their goodbyes. So I say here for all of us, GOOD BYE, MOM.

Don’t you want to cry?  I’m sure at times we’ve all harbored resentment toward our parent, but is any of it that bad that you would want to post this in the paper for all the world to see?

I don’t know.  As many struggles as I’ve had with my parents, I would never say anything like this about them, nor would I publically talk about it.

Then again, my parents don’t fit any of the traits that Delores exhibited either.

But it made me stop to think.

How are my children going to remember me when I’m gone?  Am I going to remembered as Delores was, or are they going to one day see everything that I have in my heart for them and see that I did the best I could with what I had and that no matter what, the struggles with homework, the discipline, the groundings, were simply so that I could teach them to be functioning members of society?

No, I’m not afraid of death.  But I am afraid that I’m not living my life the way that I should be, living a life that’s going to leave a legacy to others, living the way God wants me to live.

And so, I embark today on our annual church camping trip.  Time to get away from the hustle and bustle of the thriving metropolis of Roanoke and computers and cell phones and everything else in this world that provides a distraction.

It’s time to make sure that my kids know that short of God, they are the most important things in my life.  And I say that not because I want a nice obit in the paper one day, but because I truly mean it.

Until next time…

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I know.

It’s so unlike me to go days without posting.  Unless of course, I’ve made it so melodramatic and asked for prayers and acted like the sky was falling.

As much as I deny it, I can be a drama queen.  No seriously.  I can be.  But I try hard not to be.

And I’ve been absent.

I’ve not shared with you many of the things that I want to share with you because there just hasn’t been time.

Work is kicking my butt, y’all.  I mean, knock out, drag out, knocking me on my butt kind of thing.

But I can’t complain.  I’ve been with the company for three years.  I’ve NEVER been this motivated before.  I’m loving my new responsibilities.  I mean LOVING.  Like, I don’t mind working on these things to get caught up and/or ahead on the weekend.

The problem is, not only has it picked up but so has Desperately Seeking WordPress.  I guess when you talk about how great it WordPress is, people eventually want to move and the designers that I’m working with are all doing great with their businesses, and so it flows. (And speaking of… WAIT until you see the project that I’ve been working on… you’re going to LOVE it!  But I can’t show you just yet.)

And then there is soccer and football.  Do you know that this week with football, we have practice Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday and a game Saturday night AND Sunday night?

Let’s not forget the back to school things that are going on.  Like we still need school supplies.  And my children are in desperate need of a hair cut.

And the house?  Yeah, it needs a good scrub down.  The kids managed to get their rooms cleaned… well, ok, I can at least see the floor now.  But it’s a start.  And I’ve made a rule that from 6-8pm while Matthew is at football, I will clean.

And so, as suggested by Beth, I put my running shoes on and I clean.  The running shoes help.  Really.  Try it.  I would’ve never believed it, but it’s true.  I get so much done.

I’ve assigned the kids chores, which, quite honestly, I should’ve done a long time ago.  Tonight, Matthew did the dishes after dinner.  And I cooked.  Those darn kids want to eat every night.  Do yours?

Today, when I walked into church, my mind was racing with all the things that I need to be doing.  We sang a few songs and I went to the altar to pray. It’s nothing new for me as I go almost every Sunday.  I guess growing up Episcopalian, I feel like I must be kneeling for God to really hear what I need to say.  I just laid it all out on the line.

I’ve not been to church in a few weeks.  The whole summer almost and not because I didn’t want to go, but because I’ve been out of town.  I’ve started to control things again, or at least try to.  I’ve taken on the weight of everyone else including those in my youth group, my friends, my kids, etc.

I’ve stepped up and said, “You know what God… don’t worry about this.  I’ve got it all under control.  I don’t need you.”

I’ve done it before.  I know that I’ll do it again.

And I’ve been drifting.  Funny how the sermon was about that exact same thing?

No.  Not funny.  It’s God.  Telling me that He knows and was just waiting for me to admit it so I can put my tail between my legs and go back to doing what I’m supposed to be doing… letting Him handle it.

The funny thing is… I didn’t even realize that I was drifting.  Other people saw it.  They brought it to my attention.  But I didn’t want to admit it although deep down, I knew.

But what really drove it home was my lack of desire to blog.

I know, right?

I have not wanted to blog for three days.  To be honest, I’ve not wanted to blog for awhile, but I felt like I needed to. I felt like I had to get these things out.  Not only for you, but for me, too.  To capture these memories, these thoughts, and these feelings for when my kids look back at their childhood - when I’m long gone.

But today, after I again confessed that I’d been trying to do it all, trying to do things that I can’t do, trying to do things that only He can do, I felt better.  I came home and got so much housework done.  The kids helped and now we’re going to go and watch a movie.  Because we’ve earned it.  (That and I have more laundry to fold and what better time to do it than while watching a movie.)

And tonight, I’m going to try to go to bed earlier.  Because this 2-3am thing is getting old.  REAL OLD.

And I’m going to pull my focus back to where it needs to be.  On Jesus.

We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. Hebrews 2:1

I hate drifting… because when you finally realize where you are, you don’t want to be there.

Until next time…

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