Sometimes you just want to curl up in bed and cry. And sometimes you are so numb tears won't even come.

Tonight I stood alone in my kitchen washing 4 of my china bowls. China that my grandma gave to me. My grandma who was very much like my mother in law, who got along great with my mother in law. My grandma who my mother in law prayed for. My grandma and my mother in law, both women who taught me so much about being a mom, wife and housekeeper. Who were like moms to me in so many ways.

Both women who I've lost.

I washed the china, that I had served apple crisp drizzled with salted caramel sauce to my father in laws new girlfriend to and waited for the tears to come.

But there are none today.

Today I feel almost numb to the pain. Numb and bewildered by the pain and brokeness in the world.

I know God is loving and merciful and full of grace. I know He has a plan. I scream to myself I KNOW YOU HAVE A PLAN! Just show me....help me to understand. Help me to understand why you would take two women who meant so much to me away. Help me to understand how in the midst of grief we now have to deal with a new pain and confusion and hurt and divisions in our family. I DON'T UNDERSTAND.

How can you ask us to give our whole being to our spouse, to be spiritually, emotionally and physically united, completely devoted...loving as You have loved and yet in an instant You can take them away? I DON'T UNDERSTAND.

Now the tears come.

Pain. Fear. Grief. Loneliness. Confusion.

And yet I must stay strong. For my husband who is emotionally drained and is about ready to walk back in the door after hard conversations. For my kids who still miss their GaGa and are confused.

I keep going, and I remember. I remember how in the darkness that was Ukraine when I felt as though no good could come...you brought life from ashes. How after months of praying, when almost all hope was lost...you answered with a crazy plan. How when I though things were irreparable you made beautiful things out of dust. How when you were in the garden, you weren't grieving the loss of life, you were grieving the separation you would experience. That you would experience so through you we would never have to have separation, from You or our loved ones who trust in You.

You can do the impossible and unthinkable and you make all things new. So I wait.

PLEASE come.

There are moments in our lives where God seems to briefly open our eyes to the stench that is the wickedness evil and sin that dwells in our hearts. It seems like we only get a glimpse and then remaining memory of the repulsiveness haunts us for a time. Just the memory alone is enough to prompt us to repentance and further indwelling in His Spirit. Then before we know it the memory fades.

I'm sure if we had our eyes fully opened we would be overwhelmed with despair at the state of our own hearts and sink into a great depression, so only a glimpse is given.

I hate that the memory fades. While I have had many glances of my depravity (and happening to be getting a pretty good look at it currently) I want the repulsiveness of sin to affect me more permanently. I want to be more desperate for Him and His grace constantly, not just a quick pick me up until I can handle it again.

Maybe the problem is less my memory but more my lack of right viewing. The closer we are to the Lord and His glory the more we see ourselves and our hearts as they truly are. Maybe the problem is that I'm not dwelling close enough to his glory.

Either way today I am getting a painful glimpse into my hearts sinful nature. A tendency towards bitterness and jealousy, insecurity and pride. It's not a pretty picture. The most frustrating part is several of these areas are ones that I am continuously struggling with. The enemy is unrelenting in His ploys ton keep me beaten down in these areas as well. yet I haven't figured out his tricks and find myself in similar situations over and over and over again.

I'm so tired and discouraged by it all. I hate the sin in my life and yet honestly it doesn't seem like the Lord is going to get anywhere with me. Sometimes I feel like a hopeless case and one of His difficult children that makes Him want to bang His head against the wall.

Thankfully I find verse like this that give me some hope:

"Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham, as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old."

Micah 7:18-20

I love the honesty that a relationship and not a religion allows you.

Sometimes I feel a bit smothered in the South. Well, let's be honest...I felt smothered in the Midwest and the North as well. I just put myself out there and apparently that's pretty strange. I don't believe in pretension. Being pretentious isn't going to help me or anyone else.

Choosing to put myself, who I am, what I've been through, what I've struggle with out there will not only build real relationships quicker, it will also benefit those who are in and/or struggling with the same things.

That's pretty rare down here. Thankfully I've found a few people who are willing to make that leap but it's much more common to keep your mouth shut and always be "good" or "fine". To always be polite and act happy even if you feel like your world is falling apart. To never fight with your husband, struggle with your children, or be frustrated with your circumstances. But that's not life, nor is it me.

For instance right now is just a hard period. There has been a lot of loss and death change and frustration in the last year plus. I know mentally that in everything God is working for my good. I know that in my head, but right now it feels awful hard to communicate that to my heart.

I love that when a sermon just rocks me and I start being really honest with God that I CAN. That I can tell Him that right now, all of this...it doesn't feel like love. Loosing my grandma and my MIL in one year, two of the only women in my life that encouraged as a mom, and a believer and in staying at home, that would just let me call and clear my head and be there and listen and give wise counsel....having them gone doesn't feel like love.

Feeling called to place and then to have nothing but frustration and hurt and confusion while trying to serve....that doesn't feel like love.

And then after pouring your heart out about how right now His love doesn't feel very loving and knowing He hears you, being able to fall on Him in trust and faith that every time before you've felt like this He has walked you through it and shown you how it was His love. Trusting that someday it will all make sense and be worth it. Trusting that He's heartbroken watching my tears. Trusting.

Because He who has begun a good work in me will bring it to completion.

Back

Well, I'm back. Not that there is anyone that still reads this...but I think that's kind of why I'm back. And among other circumstances that have changed and are going to change.

It's been just over a year and a lot has changed in that time. You can catch up on some of that if you like by checking out our family blog.

I am not about the business of catching up, or maintaining here. This was, and always has been a place for me to come and mentally vomit all over a page and clear my head.

So let's get on with it.

I think I've been reading Ecclesiastes too much. Life is feeling very much as though there is nothing that hasn't been done. Some days, weeks, months or even years we are painfully aware of the fact that we don't belong here, and life on this earth is just not quite right. Ever. And even in those glorious moments where everything falls in to place and you breathe deeply and try to imprint it in your memory, we aren't experiencing greatness in this life, we are getting a breath of heaven and it's glory.

A relationship doesn't make life right, school doesn't make life right, a marriage doesn't make life right, kids don't make life right, friends don't make life right, and the perfect church (which doesn't exist) does not make life right. We are supposed to ache and long for something more and so God allows us to experience the imperfection in this world leaving us yearning for Him and heaven.

Sometimes I beg for more wisdom and insight to understand and the only answer I get is not here. You can't and won't understand here, but soon my child it will all make sense. I wish I had the faith to leave it at that at stop seeking sense from it all.

How I long for the day when everything falls into place and I get it. No more being in my head trying to solve the unsolvable. It will just all click, and He will be creator, perfector and all knowing. Just as He always has been, only I couldn't see it clearly through the cloud of sin we live in.

Bowing Out

As I said a couple of months ago, I've been wondering for awhile if I should keep up my personal blog. There's this line of wanting to share more, and not being able to...and yet it still seems that some times I share too much.

Between that and the fact that let's be honest- I haven't exactly been making the most frequent of appearances around here, I'm bowing out of my personal blog. I will still keep the family one and my business one going if you want glimpses into our lives, but my rants and raves are for the most part over.

I've had a four year run and it's been nice.

I started blogging when I had no one else to talk and no sounding board. Too often I took my thoughts here instead of to God, and externally processed into a virtual world instead of to Him.

Life is different now.

I'm so grateful to be in a place where I have friends, and a womens group, and a church. To be in a place where I get poured into and further equipped to pour out to others and give back. I feel like for the first time in a long time I'm in the midst of a community of believers acting as the church.

It's been 5 years since I've lived in the same city as some of my closest friends, and about 8 since I was at the same place in life as them. I'm so grateful to have that again. The difference this time is knowing what a gift it is. I'm not taking it for granted and doing my best to be intentional and to give more than I get.

So I'm investing more in that, and more in being a mom, and my budding business. In real life that gives back.

Too often my thoughts on here have been conversations meant to be between just me and the Lord. They needed not have been public, and rarely good came from them being public. My overflow of thought should always be taken to Him. And we're working on that (or should I say He is working on me!)

That said I've had a few of you that cheered me on through many situations and for that I am extremely grateful. You gave me encouragement when it was hard to come by.

So without any further adieu, I bid goodbye to this blog. It's been real.

*Sigh*

Finally a chance to get all (or at least some) of my thoughts out. I really wanted to do it in the moment, or at least sooner to every thing going down, but life did not afford me that.

The evening after I wrote my last post I got a call from my mom telling me my grandma (dad's mom) had gone into the hospital. She's had two bypass surgeries and a couple of heart attacks. She's a tough broad, and I wasn't too concerned, nor were me parents. Or the doctors, because they didn't get her in for an MRI until the next morning. After seeing that they realized she was having an aortic aneurysm and rushed her into surgery. I got a call in the afternoon informing me of all of this and that she still had several hours to go.

While in the middle of leading my small group I got a call from my sister letting me know she was bleeding out in surgery. My grandma's on lots of blood thinners, I knew it wasn't good. While going to pick up my boys my mom called to tell me she hadn't made it. I broke down. It was so sudden and unexpected. I'm so thankful I had friends that immediately started praying over me.

Thankfully we had already been planning on leaving Saturday to go to STL for my cousins wedding. We moved up the departure time, and helped with funeral details.

See my grandma wasn't just my grandma. She was my name sake, my confidant and my friend. We were pretty close. Not to mention, I've never had any one close to me die before so this was uncharted waters for me.

I honestly wasn't completely confident of her salvation. We had talked about faith, but it had never been point blank asked. God was SO good to give me peace in that. At the visitation some of her dear friends from her neighborhood came over to me. They told me they wanted me to know they rushed to the hospital Tuesday night and point blank asked her, she said she was a Christian and that she prayed every night, that she knew Him, and she knew He knew her, then they told me she proceeded to talk about me and how my faith had influenced her. I am so grateful to the Lord for knowing what a peace that would give and making sure I heard those words through the Body of Christ.

In the process of details it unfolded that Chris was playing piano for the service, and he also ended up randomly being the "officiator". I can't remember being more in awe, impressed and in love with my husband on one day as I was then. He completely allowed the Holy Spirit to indwell in him and speak through him. Not only did he honor my grandma and what she was about, but he LAID OUT the gospel in a largely unbelieving room. He even looked my grandpa (agnostic) in the eye as he gave the gospel. I know God is going to use what Chris said. It was so incredible to see him walk in such faith and submission that day.

There was an open mike time where people got up to speak. I said something, but I didn't feel like I was very eloquent, or quite did justice to her. Mainly because I was crying the whole time. Any how, here is what I would have said had I been composed enough:

My grandma always used to tell me I was just like her. No teenager wants to hear she is like someone old so I usually just brushed it off. In the past several years my grandma and I have become very close. Her tenacity and how she handled moving multiple times gave me strength and wisdom as I was going through similar circumstances. She had a way of listening that was so non-judgemental. She would usually have her opinions about what I told her, but she would always let me finish and then would tell me what she thought matter of factly. No more drama after that, she had said her peace and I could do with it what I wanted. I always appreciated her honesty and directness.

As I've grown I've noticed things about her that a younger more self absorbed person doesn't tend to see. She is always giving. Rarely expecting any thing back. Every one who knows my grandma has something she has made for them. Those that really know her have difficulty storing all that she has made or given them. If she hears about a need she drops every thing to help meet it. Whether it be quilts for a cancer center, a weeks worth of food for a neighbor or just helping to pick someone up, she was some one you could always rely on. The way she served others was remarkable.

She was super thrifty as well. My grandma used to be the coupon queen, and always had a coupon for every thing. She di ligently served her family and helped save money in this way. While she had gotten away from doing it as consistently in the past few years there was never a time she sent a package to me that didn't have a diaper coupon in it. Also, instead of throwing out papers, magazines and other publications she though of others even as she read. Dad got the Rush Limbaugh papers after she was done and I got all the cooking magazines. And if she saw an article in the paper she thought you would like she cut it out and sent it to you.

She was also super crafty. One Christmas we got a suitcase full of handmade barbie doll clothes. All self created. She has made hundreds of quilts and afghans, and any thing else she could figure out to sew. She saw no need to buy some thing you could make yourself and because she was the one who made it for you, you loved it even more.

She was also wonderfully organized and planning oriented. You knew what she wanted, when she wanted you to be there and what she wanted you to bring. It made life so simple. The only reason my closets are the least bit organized is due to her affinity for making me clean mine out every time she came to visit. Even in the last few days before her passing her planning was a blessing. She had Chris', mine and both of the boys birthday presents wrapped ready to go with cards on it. Now I can keep and treasure her last gifts and the last words she wrote to me and the boys. As my husband said well in his talk "she always knew what you were going to need before you needed it." She knew an education in organization would lend a life time full of use. She was right. Like she was most of the time.

Just like she was right when she said I was just like her. I so am. And I am so proud to be. Crafty, organized, service oriented, and thrifty. I love to create things, grow things and cook things. I'm also stubborn, strong willed, tenacious and outspoken, just like she was.

Grandma was big about passing things on that meant a lot to her. While I can try to do that with the physical things she left, more importantly I want to do that with her memory. My children will know GG Sue was a big part of who I was, and in turn who they are. They'll know the attributes of her they have in them, and why that's such a blessing.

I'm going to miss my grandma. She was someone safe I could talk to, and share things with I hadn't told others about. She understood me in a way that no one else can. She poured so much wisdom and love into my life. I am a better person because of her, and proud to be just like her.

To say there is a lot going on in life right now may be a bit of an understatement.

I really dislike when I have a lot going on and yet am craving time to just be in the word...or books about His word and spending time with God. I just want to sit, and be for at least an hour... without falling asleep.

Maybe it's because God is doing a lot in our lives right now.

For the first time in five year Chris and I are both plugged into our own individual small groups, a small group with couples, and are serving the body.

We both love it, but at the same time during all that spiritually stagnant time (a.k.a. Connectisuck) there were areas we slacked off in, or strongholds we allowed Satan to form. So along with involvement has come a lot of coming back to where we once were, and working to break through those strongholds.

I feel like my mind is just now beginning to fire on some of the cylinders it used to run on. I used to be filled with lots of deep theological and philosophical ponderings, and while I still have those thoughts they are more simple (because as much as people try to complicate it, I think our faith and the questions it brings up really is rooted in simplicity), or consumed with issues more applicable to my day to day life, like marriage and children.

I think the biggest areas God is helping me gain freedom in is insecurity, and finances. Finances seem like a silly one, so let me explain a bit.

I have swung to both extremes in the view of money. Growing up in a well-to-do high school where Coach purses were low end, and there were rows of BMW and Mercedes in the parking lot, I became very materialistic...and very aware of what money did. After Ukraine, I swung to the other extreme, judging those who drove the BMW's and bought designer purses (especially those within the church). I didn't want to have any money because I saw what it did, I viewed it as evil, not as a gift from God and a tool to glorify Him.

Both extremes unhealthy. Besides, now I'm somewhere in the middle. We don't drive a BMW, but we are by no means poor (no matter how Dave and our budget some times makes us feel). We don't want to live like no one else so we can live like no one else (Dave's motto). We want to live like no one else, so we can help others live. So we're working on honoring God with our finances. And for us that means more than tithing. My attitude towards money was very off and God is helping me work through my issues towards it. And trusting Him with it, and to provide it. This also goes back to a lot of worry issues for me that being a planner I'm prone to.

It's amazing how in working through finance issues, I'm dealing with so many other related issues (insecurity, lack of trust, selfishness, pride...), so I feel like there's a whole slew of struggles I'm just at the tip of.

With insecurity, I feel like I am just at the beginning of what will more than likely be a life long process of fighting for freedom in this area. It's a fickle one to fight through. In the process of working through my issues with it I find myself focusing all too often on me. My hurts, my triggers, my thoughts...and while some of it is helpful, to gain insight on what has made me who I am and the choices I make...it's not okay to stay self focused (my issue with existentialism, but that's another post). We are supposed to be Christ focused, with our thoughts and actions. So after I spend so much time processing through what brought about the result of my current personhood, I must be quick to relate it back to Christ and regain my focus.

Even though looking back gains insight, I need to look up to remind me of why I've dealt with and been formed into what I am. To glorify God.

I've heard people talk about needing salvation just as much now as the day they were first saved. I actually find myself even more dependent on it now. I am more aware now of how completely repulsive my heart is, because Christ has entered my life. Each day He gives me more awareness to the sin that lives within, unclouding my vision, making it more like His.

All that to say...here's hoping for some down time on the 10hour drive to get some extended JC time. It's all up to the kiddos. At least I don't have to drive. And after a 18hour drive up to Philly, and a 15hour drive home, that is something!