There are no guarantees...

This might be a doozy of a post, but my mind is thinking about this stuff right now...

At church yesterday morning, our pastor spoke on parenting. He called it 'Mythbusters: Godly homes produce Godly children.' It was basically speaking on how there are no promises that just because you raise your children in a certain way they will chose to follow Jesus. Good parents sometimes have hard kids that turn out not following Jesus, making poor life choices, etc. And sometimes bad parents have great kids who end up loving Jesus later in life and having great families of their own.

And all of this got me thinking. You can try to control things as much as possible, do all the 'right' things, but sometimes there are just no guarantees in life.

Take for instance, my sweet friend Brooke. She's phenomenal. They were (and still are!) some of our most cherished friends while we lived in Georgia. I don't think she would mind me sharing this because she talks about it freely on her blog, but they're pregnant right now but her baby boy has a fatal birth defect. He can live inside of her womb, but as soon as he is born they know that he is not going to make it.

Seriously? It's heartbreaking and doesn't make sense. As she shared the other day, as soon as she found out she was pregnant, she took prenatal vitamins, she ate healthy, works out... did everything 'right'. They're now looking at adopting in Africa- kids who are healthy and living probably despite not having prenatal vitamins/health care/clean water/etc.

Also, take my friend Kelsey- also a sweet friend from our time in Georgia. She and her husband Chris came to Fort Benning for a years' worth of training and they were in our small group from church. He went to West Point, they were strong believers, newly married, a great great couple. He has been in Afghanistan for the last year or so and we recently found out that he got killed. Again... Seriously? He was one of the good guys. Like, really solid, amazing man, great husband kind of good guys. Kelsey is now a 23-year-old widow. It doesn't make sense.

You can be an amazing parent and just have a tough kid. You can do all of the right stuff while pregnant and still lose a baby. You can marry a phenomenal man but still lose him so much earlier than you were anticipating. There just are no guarantees in life.

And this sometimes makes me want to hole myself up. Never have kids in case I would have to say goodbye to early. Not let Lane go anywhere without me in case something happens. Try to protect myself from the (potential) pain.

But. I would lose out on too much. And Jesus calls us to hope. And trust. Believe that this isn't all there is. Show others what it is like to love a good God who is unchanging despite what life looks like and who loves us so much. It's a journey, for sure.

So that's what's on my mind today... sorry if I'm a Debbie Downer- I'll try to not be like this everyday. :) Makes me excited to hang out in heaven someday.

The Station

In the absence of any life-changing thoughts going on in my brain this morning, I thought I'd share one of my favorite essays... I think I first heard (read) it when I was in high school and it struck a chord so I've held onto it and it still means a lot to me. Enjoy~!

The Station

Robert J. Hastings

Tucked away in our subconscious is an idyllic vision. We see ourselves on a long trip that spans the continent. We are traveling by train. Out the windows we drink in the passing scene of cars on nearby highways, of children waving at a crossing, of cattle grazing on a distant hillside, of smoke pouring from a power plant, of row upon row of corn and wheat, of flatlands and valleys, of mountains and rolling hillsides, of city skylines and village halls.

But uppermost in our minds is the final destination. On a certain day, at a certain hour we will pull into the station. Bands will be playing and flags waving. Once we get there so many wonderful dreams will come true, and the pieces of our lives will fit together like a completed jigsaw puzzle. How restlessly we pace the aisles, damning the minutes for loitering--waiting, waiting, waiting for the station.

"When we we reach the station, that will be it!" we cry. "When I'm 18." "When I buy a new 450SL Mercedes Benz!" "When I put the last kid through college." "When I have paid off the mortgage!" "When I get a promotion." "When I reach the age of retirement, I shall live

happily ever after!"

Sooner or later we must realize there is no station, no one place to arrive at once and for all. The true joy of life is the trip. The station is only a dream. It constantly outdistances us. "Relish the moment" is a good motto, especially when coupled with Psalm 118:24- 'This is the day which the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.' It isn't the burdens of today that drive men mad. It is the regrets over yesterday and the fear of tomorrow. Regret and fear are twin thieves who rob us of today.

So, stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles. Instead, climb more mountains, eat more ice cream, go barefoot more often, swim more rivers, watch more sunsets, laugh more, cry less. Life must be lived as we go along. The station will come soon enough.

Something is seriously wrong with me...

I was prepared.

I had snacks in my purse to prevent unnecessary stops for food.

I had converted my leftover change sitting in my kitchen into cash so that I didn't really feel like I was spending money and could be getting things for free! (Which I know isn't true, but it's easier to live in delusions sometimes.)

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon just begging to be filled with new sundresses and tank tops from cute stores.

And I didn't find a single thing.

I walked into Target, a.k.a. my mecca, and only walked out with ONE thing. And it was a practical thing at that!

One thing. From Target. I strolled through the aisles feeling lost, confused, and helpless.

I just knew I didn't need any of that stuff. Sure, it'd be fun to have and would make me happy maybe for an hour or two, but I just didn't NEED it. Consumerism was kind of making me sick, knowing the conditions that others in the world live in. If they could see my closet, they would freak out. I don't need new things at all! So I didn't buy any of it.

Am I growing a conscience when it comes to shopping? Alert the authorities. Something is seriously wrong with me.

Or right with me. But it was weird.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

I know it's not Christmas, but the 4th of July really is one of the most wonderful times of the year!!!

Growing up in small-town America with a parade that would rival any other, a grandpa that was born on the 4th of July and enjoying homemade vanilla ice cream with family on the lake, being a high school history teacher, and traditions of bbq's and fireworks in my heritage, LOVING Independence Day is in my blood. Add in a husband that has been overseas serving on the 4th and it adds up to a very patriotic gal. :)

I hope all of y'all are having a wonderful 4th of July weekend!

Ours has been wonderful- full of baseball, fireworks, parades, family, friends, and food. I couldn't ask for much more.

I'll be sure to post pictures soon, but for today I wanted to share a quick article with you guys about the beauty of our country. Many times I've talked about how much I like the CBS Sunday Morning News program, and this morning Ben Stein had a great commentary on Independence Day. If you have a free 3 minutes, read this and think about how great of a country we live in. One that speaks to the deepest desires of the human heart- freedom and individual dignity. It's good stuff. There's an actual video with him talking, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to embed this correctly; if you click the link it will take you to CBS' page with the article, and the video will be there too if you want to watch that instead.

Here's the link to the article

Happy 4th, friends!

The Calling

We've now been home from Costa Rica for a little over a month but I still find myself thinking about that trip a lot- laughing out loud at funny stories when I'm all by myself in the grocery store, remembering the beautiful sunsets, digesting even more lessons I learned.

This picture was taken on our canopy tour day. This is how I felt all trip! So fun!

Don't be jealous of the sexy helmet I got to wear.

So anyway, Lane was reading a book while we were there that got me thinking a lot, and I'm still thinking about it. It was called 'Handoff', and part of it talked about your calling versus your career.

Your calling is something that transcends everything; discovering your calling is so much bigger than just a job.

One year ago I would have said that my calling is something along the lines of

:: Educating teenagers in a relevant and loving way::

However, in the absence of a full-time teaching job, I found myself questioning my purpose and therefore my calling. And, in the future when I'm a mom, my calling will change again if I define it by the limited standards of simply what I do.

So right now I'm trying to listen to God and figure out what I my calling is. Who I am at my core. Then orient my life around that.

Educating people?

Informing them of my life through authentic living and instilling change through transparency?

Giving people a bigger picture of the world around them and helping discover their own ways to impact it for the good?

Is is something with using the creativity and power of words to change lives for the better?

Authentic, transparent living?

Loving others?

Living abundant life?

Hmmm. I'll be processing that a bit. Happy Wednesday to you all!

Happy Memorial Day?

Today is June 1st. 2010 is now almost half over. Is that weird to anyone else?

I hope you all had a great Memorial Day yesterday. Lane and I spent the day (which was B-E-A-utiful) at a park with my whole family:

I have two great older sisters who married awesome guys and they have awesome kids. L and I are the only ones who have not procreated yet which we sometimes feel sad and left out about. Just kidding. But seriously. Maybe we'll have to do something about that one of these days. Or months.

It was a beautiful, great day.

But after devoting so much of our life and our marriage to the military, it definitely was not lost on Lane & I what the true meaning of the day was. We have countless friends who are overseas right now, and we were home laughing, running, and playing with our family.

In fact, Lane spent our last Memorial Day in Afghanistan.

We know the significance of Memorial Day.

We got in the car and L told me that it was hard for him to hear people at the park exclaim 'Happy Memorial Day!' It's not like Christmas, Easter, or the 4th of July. We celebrate today because of the people who have gone before us, and given their lives on our behalf.

Lane's life was rocked last summer, much like it had been on previous deployments, when one of his buddies lost his life because of a combat mission. He has since exchanged some very meaningful e-mails and face-to-face conversations with that soldiers' mother who has handled that life-changing blow with such grace and dignity. Lane thinks of Ben's mom on Memorial Day... it's not a 'Happy' day for her.

I listened to Lane share his heart... and then I had to confess what I put as my facebook status update yesterday morning:

Happy Memorial Day friends! As we're enjoying family, parks, and bbqs, let us not forget the purpose behind this day and the sacrifices of so many. Thank You!

My heart behind it was right. I didn't want the significance and the purpose of the day to be lost in the ice cream, the hamburgers, and the day off of work. But, hearing a soldier's perspective on the day, my own husband's perspective on the day, helped open my eyes to how easy it is to throw around words without thinking of their impact.

With all of that said, I do hope you all enjoyed your day yesterday. If the meaning was lost in the chaos, that's okay. Take a moment today to recognize the gift that we have been given. It's just like Valentine's Day- showing love isn't limited to only that one day a year. So it is with Memorial Day. Recognize our country, the military, the families, the pride and the sacrifice any moment of any day.

2010-1983=

27.

27. 27. 27.

Say it with me. Twenty-Seven.

My birthday is not today, it was actually nearly 3 weeks ago. But I think that the reverberations of that shock are still coursing through my veins and I'm trying to process why I was, in fact, shocked to turn 27.

Now, to add a disclaimer, I know that some of you reading my blog are older than Twenty-Seven. Maybe much older? I humbly apologize.

But still.

I FEEL OLD.

I haven't had a birthday where this has happened to me yet. I would have thought that some sort of quarter-life crisis would have hit me at 25, and that would have made sense to me. But no, I had been telling people for a good 5 months that I was 25 when I was still 24. I was excited to hit Twenty-Five. It seemed mature.

It seemed like at 25 I would have everything sorted out, knew my life trajectory and how I would get there.

Um, no.

But still. It sounded wise, classy, prime to me. I loved being 25!

26 came and went without much to-do.

Then. It inevitably came, much like birthdays tend to do.

And I turned 27. Around The Birthday, I was reading a book where the main character was a cute little 25-year-old Miss Thang. She had an attitude, good clothes, good shoes, and boys chasing after her. And it struck me- I'm no longer a cute little thing! I'm nearing middle age! No longer am I a cute little college girl. I might as well already have crows feet around my eyes, a tire around my waist and saggy boobs.

Maybe I'm being a little overdramatic.

It makes me think of that country song "Strawberry Wine" where she goes: I still remember when 30 was old.

And I know that I will look back on being 27 as a beautiful age where I still had everything in front of me, was blessed beyond belief, and actually probably was a Cute Little Thing.

And I guess looking back now I have, thankfully, improved with my age. L tells me that he thinks I am more beautiful (and hot- his word, not mine) than when he met me 10 years ago. We'll see if that holds true in the next ten years, but it's a good reminder that the best is still in front of me and not behind me.

But still. 27? Ayiyi.

So...this is it

I've been dabbling. You know, just sticking your toes in the water to test the temperature but never fully jumping in. I've been reading (some might say stalking) others' blogs like crazy, have thought about how to take my next step in life a whole lot, have talked to my hubby about it, have read books, have pretty much done everything but actually jumping in.

Because dabbling is comfortable; there's not much risk in dabbling. Once you jump in though, you're in.

Here's the thing: I'm not a writer. At least, up until this point in my life I haven't been. I have been a teacher (high school social studies which I loved, more on that in a later post), I have been a wife (an Army Wife at that, which ingrains a deep strength in you that I wasn't quite sure I possessed until I learned it was, in fact, there), a sister, a friend, a reader... the list goes on but it certainly didn't include writer.

But by a series of... accidents... happenings... events... I still don't quite know which, I have become a writer. And I love it. It feeds my soul. It speaks to my heart. I find myself standing in the checkout line at the grocery store twisting words around in my head to see which fit best together. I am now one of those people who must sleep with a pen and a piece of paper by my bed to write down last-minute thoughts before falling asleep. How did that happen?

Last fall, when my husband was still in Afghanistan, I needed to process what our previous four years meant to us, our marriage, our faith, our lives, everything. I believe in the power of words and the strength there is in getting them out- whether in conversation or on paper. So I began writing. And writing. And writing. And by the time I finished writing down our story (originally intended to be simply a really long journal entry) I looked down and had 50,000 words. Hmmm. So I then began to chat with people I trusted about what to do with this thing I had created and the word 'book' became a part of my regular vocabulary. It still only exists as a document on my computer, but I have hopes that it won't end there. I'm on the journey to (hopefully!!!) getting published and I'm trying to appreciate it while I'm here.

Recently, I got in touch with a woman I greatly admire about this 'book' of mine because she runs a website for military wives called CincHouse.com and I needed some advice. She gave me the opportunity to write articles for her a couple of times a month and my first contribution was published on her site recently. So, now it's official. I am a writer.

I was asking (freaking out to...) my husband yesterday when I first saw it on the website- "What?!? This means that people are going to... actually...read....my...words!"

In his loving and patient way he said "Well yes, hon. Isn't that what you want?"

I suppose so. But that is such a vulnerable thing. Ayiyi. But, if this is something I really do want to pursue, I need to get used to that. I need to put myself out there. Give voice to my words and experiences and believe that they will be used in others lives. Let my words be used as a compass in their lives in hopes that it will help them navigate the journeys that they are on.

Which is why I'm not dabbling anymore. It's not worth it and that's a part of what this blog is for. I'm jumping in.