Sure, scars are evidence of a wound.   More importantly, they’re evidence of a healing.   How do you see your scars?   I was a pretty rambunctious kid, and accumulated a collection of facial scars by the time I was 10.  I still see them every time I look in the mirror.  I like them.   Each one has a story,and I am a story teller.   Most of them, I can blame on my sister, which makes for a better story.  

What I like most, though, is that, years ago, I learned to pray over my scars; physical ones, first, then emotional and mental scars.   “Lord, my goal is to be like you.   I take that goal seriously.   You have scars.   I have scars.   Help me to wear mine the way you wear yours.”   I know I won’t be getting through this life unscarred, or unwounded.   But I want my wounds to send me running to my healer, my Jesus.   He can heal things so well the scar goes away, but I think there’s a reason why he lets me keep the scars.   It’s because of the story.   It’s a testimony.

My scars look much softer, now, than they used to.  And I love their testimony.   🙂

Sometimes I need a progress check.   I need to know that I am not wasting my time; I need to know that I am getting closer to the goal.  

Last night, I was on Pinterest.   All my children are unmarried; the youngest two are in love, but grandchildren are a long way off in the future.   Never the less, I have a secret Pinterest board of things to do for and with my yet unconceived grandchildren.   I can already tell, I am going to be a most amazing grandmother!  

I also have a secret wedding board–keep the cart before the horse, first things first, and all that.  It was while looking at wedding stuff that I had my progress check.   “Six Ways to Build Up Our Men”,  screamed the title of a blog post that had been pinned.   “I wonder if these are things I want to tell my daughter,” I mused.   I have many things I want to tell my daughter.   A long, long, long list.   Much of it is on this topic – – the power she will have to unleash the strength and masculinity of the man who eventually becomes her husband; freeing him to gentleness.  

Sometimes I need a progress check. I need to know that I am not wasting my time; I need to know that I am getting closer to the goal. Last night, I was on Pinterest. All my children are unmarried; the youngest two are in love, but grandchildren are a long way off in the future. Never the less, I have a secret Pinterest board of things to do for and with my yet unconceived grandchildren. I can already tell, I am going to be a most amazing grandmother! I also have a secret wedding board–keep the cart before the horse, first things first, and all that. It was while looking at wedding stuff that I had my progress check. “Six Ways to Build Up Our Men”, screamed the title of a blog post that had been pinned. “I wonder if these are things I want to tell my daughter,” I mused. I have many things I want to tell my daughter. A long, long, long list. Much of it is on this topic – – the power she will have to unleash the strength and masculinity of the man who eventually becomes her husband; cultivating in him the courage and gentleness God has planted there, to grow. But my advice isn’t written out, yet, neatly packaged. I thought I’d check and see how others do that. Number two on this particular list was try to be as cheerful as you were when you first married. Wow. I never got passed this one on the list. Why? Because, by this standard, I am a smashing success, and I want to camp here in this happy place, for a bit. Did you hear me? I am a SMASHING success! If you know me, now, you know I’m not always cheerful. And if you knew me then, you will be very happy for my husband, to know that I improved (and am still improving) on the cheerfulness scale. Because I was BAD. My hubby had it rough for our first few years. I didn’t have many cheerful countenance days. I have many more, now. I won’t go into all the details, but the year of our engagement, and the first years of our marriage weren’t the pretty package I tried to present to the world. See, I was working off the “Life is a Stage” metaphor, and my hubby refused to be an actor in my play. And, he SURELY wasn’t going to let me be the director AND the producer, AND the leading lady, while his whole life was reduced to a cameo role. I see this, now, and I am glad for his courage and stubbornness in refusing to play-act. But at the time, it was a trauma for me. I wasn’t cheerful. I was a shrew. To be truthful, I am surprised he actually married me, because I was a shrew BEFORE the wedding! But he did marry me, and he stayed, and I stayed, and we learned a lot, and lost a lot, and cried a lot, and gained more than we lost, and laughed a lot, and twenty-eight years later, here we are! I am not a great house-keeper. Too many projects, too many passions, and too much ADD! I am not a drop-dead gorgeous beauty queen. Too practically minded, and too unafraid of dirt! I am a great cook, but I don’t cook often enough, as that’s no longer my family’s most pressing need. I am not a typical wife, or mom, and I am not what my hubby would have asked for when we started. Heck, I don’t know ANYONE who’d be asking for what I am, even today, and I am so much better than before! But this is my PROGRESS REPORT, remember! You know what I do have? I have a great smile. Somewhere along the way, fairly recently, I realized that this great smile is a great asset. A great strength. A legacy, perhaps. It is what I want my family to remember when I am gone. I want them to remember that when they wrecked my car, I smiled because they weren’t hurt. I want them to remember texting me at 1:30 am, asking, “Can we talk?”, and that I smiled, with concern as they entered my room, tears flowing. I want them to remember my smile when they were ready for the home school prom. I want them to remember that I smiled when I told them everything was going to turn out for the best, and that I knew they didn’t mean the unkind words they’d spoken earlier that evening, and that, yes, of course I forgave them. I want them to remember me smiling when an arm was broken, or a face needed to be stitched up, as I told them, “Yes, this IS going to hurt, but you CAN get through it.” I want them to remember that I smiled when, at 8 years old, they showed up in my room, announcing, “My bed is wet, again.” (I didn’t, but I want them to remember that I did.) And that’s an important part of this post. I want them to remember something that wasn’t. That’s completely unrealistic, I know. But, I am not a person given to realistic hopes and desires. I am a person whose hopes and desires are going to require miracles. But that is still what I hope for, and what I desire,and because I have a loving God who loves to give me unlikely blessings, I ask for wild, crazy, unlikely things. I am JUST realistic enough to know I have to do my part. What is my part? What is the way to get them to remember my smile, and the love motivating it? Use my smile, NOW, every chance I get. I am very happy with my progress. I like that I don’t have to look BACKWARDS for a younger version of me, as a role model. Frankly, I want to get as far from that girl as I can get! I want to smile, and laugh, and then laugh some more. The fact that I laugh at different things than most people? That’s okay! My smile puts me halfway to laughter; on the ready for a memory making moment. I’m committing to smiling, for them, but also for me. Because, finally, I like who I am. Especially when I smile.

Our family gathers on Sunday evenings with a couple of other families for discussion of our walks with God, and for fellowship and for food, occasionally.  There’s also a hot-tub, which I think offers a distinct advantage over institutional church.  Last night, the kids (ages 10-21) got in the hot-tub, and the adults (ages unimportant) stayed inside and had a glass of wine.  It was good fellowship, but alas, tomorrow is a school day and one of the young adult children had to return to college across the state, bright and early this morning.  So when it was time to wrap it up, the first call, second call, and third call were issued, and the kids were dried off and ready to go home.  In swimsuits, still. After dark, In Michigan. In December. Imagine that!  In Michigan, it’s 59 degrees at 11:00pm, on December 2nd. Wow. Just, WOW.

This morning, it’s 48 degrees, and expected to climb to a whopping 57!  I am considering this day a “second (or maybe third or fifth) chance day”.  I bought a bunch of bulbs to put in, in the fall, and didn’t get to do it, because I had to make some emergency trips to Indianapolis, and had some other family experiences that I couldn’t pass up.  I’d have been crazy to pass them up, for the chance to plant bulbs.  But I SO LONG for the color of the crocus against the snow, in early spring.  So God is giving me a second chance, today, and I’m going to throw on a cozy hoody, and go out and plant bulbs, while hoping against hope, that my kids will do their school work.  Please, God, please!  If I could have today to plant the bulbs, AND have the kids do their school work, that would be SO wonderful!

And then later, today, I’m going to do some more sewing;  I have a couple of fittings for some alterations on some bridesmaids dresses. I wanted to put one of them off until we were closer to the wedding, so as to not have to do it twice, since the girl has been losing weight.  I once altered a mother-of-the-bride dress multiple times before the wedding arrived. On one hand, you want to do these things well in advance, so that it can be crossed off the list. On the other hand, you don’t want to have to rip that dress open from the inside three times before you’re done with it! And the costume I’m doing needs a few finishing touches before it goes home with owner.

Also on the docket:

1. My husband wants me to call the CPA about our taxes, which, thanks to me, are overdue, and on extension #2.
2. My daughter is reminding me that we have to take a cake decorating class with some friends of ours.  Be careful what you say within the hearing of your daughter.  She will remember, and haunt you with it.
3. Barn inspection:  probably have to come up with some other system for watering my dairy does, since I do not want to run three water heaters throughout the winter.
4. Stack firewood.  I need to stack several cords of firewood before winter, but I can’t stack it before the boys cut it.  I really hope it gets done today.  For that to happen, I’ll have to light some fires.  Seems ironic, doesn’t it, to have to light the fire, BEFORE you get the wood?!
5. Hope it all gets done.
6. Put the things that don’t get done on tomorrow’s list.

I have a dear friend that just blogged about the month that got away.  It was a nice little post explaining she’d been busy, and I realized I had been busy, too.  I realized that I’d let some water slip under the bridge.  Inspired to write, I decided to blog again, more faithfully, this time.  Holy cannoli!  It’s been 11 months since my last post!  How did it happen? 

Well, there were some pretty ugly emotions going around then, and I just couldn’t keep spewing them out into blog-land.  Things have NOT settled down, in the least, and things are not more peaceful than they were, then.  I’m not as angry about it, though, and so I think I can try this again, without poisoning the minds of my dear readers.

My friend made an observation that she posts little one sentence snippets on Facebook, and then doesn’t feel like repeating herself on her blog.  I do the same thing.  She resolved to “Blog first, Facebook later.”  Excellent plan, my sharp-shooting buddy.  I’m joining you in that pledge.

I guess I should have warned my kids. I’ve been praying for them since conception, or at least, since the moment of my knowledge of their conception. And my prayers have changed over the years, certainly. I’ve also been praying for the future spouses of my children, but that’s another post. Sometime, I’d like to do a survey and find out WHAT parents pray for their children, because I suspect that in most cases, it isn’t as simple as “protect my child from harm.”

I have a wonderful friend, my mentor-in-motherhood, who prayed for her kids to have wisdom early. Not when they’re old. And when they became adults and started making stupid mistakes, she wondered why God hadn’t answered her prayer. Her husband laughed, and said, “Wisdom is what you learn from the mistakes you make! It doesn’t just happen!!”

Her initial hopes and expectations reveal to us the false expectation we have that if we pray for our kids everything is going to be rosy. It’s not going to be rosy. Sometimes, but not always. Not for any kid. The real issue is what happens when they fall? Have we taught our kids to get back up? Do they know how to brush off their knees, get up, and not trip into the same hole again? Or have we taught them that they better be perfect, and that our love is based on the fact that they are such wonderful little humans?

I know the enemy has a plan for my kids lives. I know God has a better plan. And I know my kids are going to make mistakes. That’s a pretty simple one to figure out, if you know who their parents are…. When they stumble, stray, fall, screw up, etc., I don’t want them to believe that they are losers. Or that they’ve ‘ruined everything’. Nothing could be further from the truth. Are there consequences? Oh, yeah, baby, there sure are! And Momma & Daddy can’t save you from those! But Momma & Daddy love you, and Momma & Daddy won’t throw you to the wolves, or make you face your mistakes alone. Momma & Daddy know a few things about making mistakes–about NOT recovering from them, and about recovering from them. We know recovering is better.

So to my kids, I say, “Never, ever, ever doubt my love or your Daddy’s love, or especially the love of God, the Eternal One, the Creator of the Universe, because He is the source of all love. Never, ever, ever doubt that love.”

And to the enemy who has a plan for my kids lives, I say this: “You are picking on the children of some very stubborn, praying people. I know the end of the story; you will not win. You better run.”

Redeemed, how I love to proclaim it
Redeemed by the blood of the lamb–
Redeemed through His infinite mercy,
His child, and forever, I am!
Redee—eeemed,
Redee—eeemed!
Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb!
Redee—eeemed,
Redee—eeemed!
His child, and forever, I am!

I can still hear Momma singing this song, from just behind my right shoulder. We sat, with Momma on the center aisle, in age order, so she was on my right. Always. She had a very powerful voice, and I used to swear I’d be deaf in that ear by the time I graduated from high school. My thanks to Fanny J. Crosby, by the way. We sang a LOT of her songs! (She wrote at least as many hymns as Bob Dylan wrote other songs.)

So now, I’m grown, and Momma isn’t singing in my ear any more, and I look around at the messes we’ve made in our lives. I see ways I’ve screwed my children up. They do not have nearly the knowledge of the Bible that I wish they did, and I’m not sure how to go back and build that, now. One son is two years behind where he should be in school, and the other can’t write. My sister is walking her way through the entanglements of her life, and I’m grieving as I watch that process. And I have my own failures. So much time spent following dreams that were misguided, or futile. Everything is a wreck. EVERYTHING is a wreck. And there is no earthly way it can be fixed.

So, I cry. I grieve over the losses of relationships, and the pain I’ve caused to others, and the pain they’ve caused to me. And I’m so broken that all I can do is to cry out, “Oh, God, What a mess! Look what we’ve done!” And I realize that all the time we were screwing all this stuff up, we were doing the best we could. We looked at situations, and thought about them and pondered them, and made our best plans, and responded in the best ways we could come up with, and we were so very proud of ourselves for our wisdom, as we walked these things out. And now we see the pile of crap it all became.

Without God.

We didn’t think we were doing these things without God. We thought He was with us in everything we did, because we were “Christians”. I realize, now, how often I’ve carried my Christianity in my pocket like a rabbit’s foot, so that I could automatically have God’s blessing on whatever I set my mind to. And I’m seeing that the relationship part of it has been sadly neglected, in the business of raising my children, and feeding my family, and helping take care of my husband and his business. Unfortunately, that’s when I needed that relationship the most. Well, except for now. NOW is when I need it the most.

The worst part is the “unfixability” of all this stuff. It just can’t get fixed. Everybody has stuff like this in their lives–reminders that in spite of being forgive for your mistakes, you cannot undo the consequences or your actions. Children born while their mother’s husbands were deployed overseas, for example. There’s bound to be some fallout in a situation like that–wouldn’t you agree? Reminders that in spite of the forgiveness available to us, we can’t undo the consequences. The reminders are there, always. I’m convinced they serve a purpose, but oh, how the enemy loves to get in there and mess things up. My friend, Jayne, was a daughter conceived by a fifteen year old unwed girl. The boyfriend married the girl, so Jayne had her daddy’s last name and a family of sorts, but her mother was miserable in marriage, and in motherhood, and she saw Jayne as a trap. Jayne, to her mom, was the evidence of her failure for the rest of her life. There was no maternal bond or love, here. I witnessed this mother cut Jayne to heart with her cruel words, one time. Jayne was 69 years old at the time, and her 84 year old mother still had the power to destroy her tender little-girl heart. The feeling I had witnessing it was the same feeling I have when I see a mother grab and shake a child in the grocery store, while hissing profanities and threats. Jayne may have been 69, but she was still a child abuse victim. And why was her mother so mean and wicked? Because she’d never learned, because she’s never been taught to handle the reminders of the consequences of her actions. To take something that the enemy wanted to use for her destruction and let God use for her benefit, and for her preservation.

I love the story of Joseph. I’m going to send you, precious reader, back to the Bible, to Genesis 37 through 45, to read it again, and to really focus on what God did in Joseph’s life, and to find parallels to your own life and what God might be doing in YOUR life, for the preservation of you AND your family.

So why do we have these reminders of our failure, when we’re told that we serve a forgiving God, a God of love and mercy–mercy that’s new every morning? I’m convinced it’s so that we will wake up every day, and say to ourselves, “I can’t do this. I’ll only mess it up, if I don’t have you, Jesus.” There is no pride in a Christian who fully understands this. Never can that Christian look at another and criticize them for an adulterous affair, or for their homosexuality, or for an addiction to pornography. We can’t even harshly judge a murderer, once we really understand our own extensive capacity for “bad judgments, (also known as “sin”); and once we understand how the enemy will stack the circumstances against us to lead us down long entangled pathways of tragedy, built as the results of one “bad judgment” piles on top of another, we can’t help but have compassion for those around us who are experiencing their own failures.

But our understanding of this is so crushing. How can anyone bear up under the weight of the responsibility of their failure? And live with the constant reminder? Only by saying, “Oh, God, what now? I can’t fix it, and I can’t live with it as it is, and I can’t die! Help me! Forgive me! Redeem me and my mess! Have mercy on me, Lord!”

And then, God truly begins to change us. I’ve thought at times in my life, that I knew what it meant to be broken. I suppose I was as broken at those times as I could have allowed myself to be. Now I feel I’m broken beyond repair, and I finally realize it’s a blessing. There can be no demand made by anyone that I “pick up the pieces”. From here on out, anything good that comes out of my life is not mine. My creativity, my plans, my effort, my strength, my stamina to make a life of my own–those things are gone. I don’t really even want it fixed.

My aunt has shared with me that the grief we have in this life eventually prepares us to be more willing to let go of this life, when it’s time. I see that preparation in me. I’ve done my battle with suicidal depression, and I’m not talking about suicide. I’m talking about coming to terms with the fact that life is short. I’m talking about coming to point where you see that as merciful, instead of tragic. I’m talking about looking at my present life, and saying, “I get it. I get that I’m here for a reason, and it has nothing to do with what I thought that reason was. It might not have anything to do with anything I understand. But, nonetheless, there’s a reason, and I don’t want to screw it up, anymore than what I already have. I will not accept condemnation. The Lord remembers my frame, and He knows that I am made of dirt. On my own, I can’t be expected to do any better than I did. I just don’t want to be on my own anymore. I need help in every little tiny aspect of this life. Moment by moment. Day by day. Minute by minute. God help me.”

So, this year will be my year to focus on redemption. (Thank you, Tarla, for speaking that!) It’s a beautiful thing. It is an essential component of our humanity, the central need for every heart. It is why we love to fix up old cars and old houses, or in my case, old sewing machines. Every “old ruin” we “restore” gives us hope for our own spirits, for our own lives, and for our own futures. And so this year, I will restore. I will work to rebuild, and let redemption have it’s way, and play itself out in my life. I’m beginning to think that redemption is really all of what life is about. Because redemption is simply love, applied to a wound, for healing.

So that’s my outlook for 2012. So let it be written. So let it be done.

Redeemed. How I love to proclaim it!

Weellll, I think I may have lost some friends on that big blog-puke post. I s’pose I knew it wouldn’t be well-received by everybody I opened it to, and I guess I’m a little surprised at myself for not having hardened myself a little more, before it happened. (*insert very deliberate sigh, here*) But, it’s okay. I can hear my mother saying, “Perhaps those people weren’t really your friends, anyway.” Maybe she’s right. I also had some people reach out with amazing sensitivity and give me some very needed wisdom and encouragement. In a way, this post is a follow-up to “Collateral Damage”, just to let those folks who read it know that, as of today, I’m okay.

I am very blessed. I’m not even close to an anxiety melt-down, today, as what I was two days ago, and that’s a very good thing. I’m clear on the fact that MY life is centered in THIS home, with this man of mine, and the kids we’ve made, and that nothing that happens outside that circle is going to ruin my life (or my Christmas!)

I had a marvelous night/morning. I’m not really sure which it was. But sometime in the night/morning, something wonderful happened. I whispered to my husband, “More than I want anything, I want your happiness.” And he said, “I AM happy.” And I realized that I’m happy, too. Now, THAT is remarkable.

It’s remarkable because it doesn’t make any sense. For years, we’ve both spent our lives chasing after happiness, and the last few years have sort of convinced us that it’s not going to happen. We own our own business, in Michigan, and the economy here just sucks. Since our business is one that survives off of peoples’ disposable income, and there isn’t any, in Michigan, right now, business “ain’t lookin’ good.” Our plans for sending our kids to college aren’t working out the way we planned. We often feel like failures, as parents. Like we’ve let our kids down.

But we laid in our bed last night, and I thought about the fact that I’ve spent well over half my life with this man. He knew my mother, and all four of my grandparents. Mom’s been gone for 17 years, and Mamaw for 17 years, too, and Granddaddy’s been gone for 24 years. He knew my little sister when she was still a pre-teen, fresh and innocent as a rose. He knew my Gammy before her dementia, when she still had a super sharp wit and a ready laugh. He has been with me, as my husband, for more years than I spent growing up in my parent’s home, and he knows the special spot on my ankles that relieved tension and stress when I was in labor with the babies. Somehow, when the midwife thought I still had a few minutes to go, he always knew she was wrong, and he always ended up catching his child just as she turned away. That’s a real blessing, isn’t it? It’s only a memory now, right? Wrong. Because, although I’m pretty sure he and I won’t be going through labor and delivery anymore, the same heart that showed him how to comfort me then, still shows him how to comfort me, now. And trust me, there are pains much worse than labor and delivery! (Pant and blow, pant and blow…)

We don’t know what this year will bring, as far as the business is concerned. And remarkably, we’re not very worried about it. God, Himself, is taking care of us. Not usually in the ways we thought it was going to happen, but always, we can look and see His provision, and “Wow, that came just in time.” He has continued to give us health in spite of the fact that we’d both just like to schedule a nervous break-down, and take two months off. Isaiah 26:12 says “LORD, you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished you have done for us.” Yep. I see that. If He didn’t give us health, there’s no way we could do what we do. We’d have no strength, no wealth to put gas in the tank, no foresight to do what needs done to keep the vehicles running… I’m not as comfortable as I used to be, in some ways, but in some ways things are better. My brain is better able to say, “Wait a minute. Back up! What really matters, here?” And I’m not easily fooled into thinking that possessions are what’s important.

I’m not even being fooled, today, into thinking that everybody has to like me, or like what I say, or understand what I’m going through. Not everybody is going to choose to be my close friend. And you know what? That really, really is okay with me. God gives each of us only so much energy, and we have to decide where to spend it. Perhaps there are those who will decide to spend their finite supply investing in somebody else’s life besides mine. God wants people to invest His love and His energy all around, so I’m not going to whine when somebody isn’t there for me. Because I know they are probably being there for somebody else who is hurting. Golly-gee! There are more people who are willing to spend their energy investing in my life than I ever could have thought there would be, and I think it’s an amazing thing!

So, yeah, I may have lost a few friends. Maybe I just scared some of them. But now I know more clearly how the ones still hanging around can help me, love me, and support me. And that’s really, really, REALLY cool.

Wow.  Last night I typed an emotionally charged blog-puke.  It took me several hours.  I told my husband to go away and leave me alone, and I spent several hours putting fingers to keyboard and sorting out the icky feelings in my heart right now.  It was ugly.  And I published it.  Yep, I really did.

It involves other people, though, and so I made it semi-private, to be read only by a few invited guests whom I trust, and who need to know what’s going on with me, so that they know how to deal with me.   I sent about 14 people a private message on Facebook, and gave them the link and the password, and asked them to read that load of crap I wrote.

Then, I went to bed, and I got really scared.  I realized that just because I password protected that particular entry didn’t mean that the password wouldn’t be shared by the people I sent it to.  This documentary on my family’s trials and tribulations could go viral on the internet, further hurting people who are already hurting enough, and everybody would know who we REALLY are, and  my family wouldn’t like me anymore.  Oh, wait.  That’s no different from right now.  Okay, so that’s not what I’m really afraid of.  I’m really afraid that my friends wouldn’t like me anymore.

I kicked myself, reminding myself (in the voice of my oldest son)  that once something is on the internet, it’s basically public domain, and I should have done this more privately.  The old-fashioned way.  By e-mail.  Except that if I sent it by e-mail, that isn’t really private, either, and there’s no way to keep people from hitting “forward” and sending it to their whole contact list.  Yeah, I should have been REALLY old-fashioned.   I should have printed it out and sent it snail-mail.  Except there’s no guarantee, even then, that somebody wouldn’t copy it, and send the copies to their friends, or more likely, scan it, and then post it on Facebook.

Bottom line?  You’re totally dependent on the decency of your friends, when you bare your soul.  That’s really all there is to it.  If you haven’t picked decent friends, you will be betrayed.

And then, this little voice in my head started laughing maniacally, and saying, “You’re thinking they’d actually FORWARD that???  To people they KNOW???”  Ah, yes.  Perspective, you suck.

And then, this other little voice inside my head began to whisper.  “You gave out the wrong password, silly!  Your secrets, and those of your family, are still your secrets.  You are still safe, if you want to be.”   Now, THAT’S funny!