Mom

Sometimes I just miss her.  Her laugh, her face, her voice.

I wish I could just have one last conversation with her.

I want to go out to coffee with her and tell her what I'm doing now.  I want to show her our house, tell her about my dreams, and hear her say that she's proud of me.

I want her to come worship with me at Bethany and have her meet all the people that have so tremendously impacted my life in the last couple of years.  I want to tell her about our Young Married's Group, have her meet all the amazing people I am blessed to be able to play/sing with on the worship team, and meet some of my new best friends.

I want her to meet Sadie and Sam, show her the upgrades we've made to our house, and tell her about how good my husband is to me.

I want to sing and play the piano for her and thank her for not letting me quit just because I wanted to go outside and play with my friends instead of practice.

I want to tell her that so much of who I am is because of her, and that when people tell me I look like her, I say, "Really? You think so?" and am totally flattered because I think that she is so beautiful.

It's amazing to me that 4 years can go by, and my heart would still want her this much - not the way she was when she died, but the way she was in my childhood.

I'm not mad at God anymore, but am still sad that life happened the way that it did.  Why her?  Why MY mom?  Why HER soul?  IT'S JUST NOT FAIR.  There are plenty of alcoholics that recover only to find true life and joy on the other side.  And she was one of the strongest people I know.  IT'S JUST NOT FAIR. So what happened there?  Why couldn't she be one of the ones who made a strong comeback? 

My friend Sarah wrote an amazing song that she sang in church today called "Your Love".  It's about how broken we can feel in this life sometimes, and how much we yearn for meaning and answers that just aren't always there.  Our viewpoint is so limited from where we stand, and only God knows the answers.  It's hard to have to go through life not understanding why things happen a certain way.  I can only lean on God and his love to get me through.  I want to be overwhelmed in His power and grace such that I find my peace and comfort in Him.

I don't want to ask God "why?" anymore.  I want to be content with not knowing all of the answers, and just be consumed and carried away in His love.

"Your Love" 
by Sarah Studebaker

Waiting here in this hour, broken down upon my knees right where I fell
Searching for the arms of a Love, for the eyes from above 'cause I can't see so well

Reaching through the darkness of this life, through the things that don't seem right and so out of place
Hoping in the promise of the other side, the arms of Love are open wide, the hands of Grace

Love come down, Love, I need you now


Rivers of mercy wash over me, showers of grace come down
Wrap Your arms around me and carry me away in your love, Your love

Striving for the answers I can't find in a world I can't rewind to a better day
Aching for a heart that You can fill, for the strength to do Your will, I pray


Love come down, Love, I need you now


Rivers of mercy wash over me, showers of grace come down
Wrap Your arms around me and carry me away in Your love, Your love

Thanks for sharing and healing people with your music, Sarah!:)  <3 you.

Catching Up

May Travels

Wow... so I just blinked, and May happened.  Crazy!  The first two weeks of May we spent traveling through France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and Italy.  Trip of a lifetime to be sure!  Through my travels, I've decided that sometime in my life I need to live in the mountains and/or live somewhere cold because my soul just longs for places that are beautiful!  I loved absorbing every second of all of the different cultures we experienced, and it was so fun to just get out of our routine and catch a glimpse of how the rest of the world lives.  We may be writing more on this later... but this is just a quick May/June catch up post for now.

Birthday Boy

We celebrated Scott's big 2-4 at the end of the month by having a Memorial Day BBQ with some of his closest friends over.  We had a blast stuffing our faces and spending time with our besties.

Celebration in Heaven

My sweet grandma (my dad's mom) passed away at the end of May as well.  She had fallen and hurt herself mid-May, and was struggling to recover.  After a few days of being in the hospital, she was transferred to hospice where she spent her final days in peace.  My family was able to go and say our goodbyes to her at this time as we knew she would not be on this Earth much longer.  It was hard to say goodbye, but we know she's in a better place now.:)  

We had some family come into town for the funeral, and Scott and I had the privilege of having my Grandma Helen come stay at our house for a few days!  It was so fun having her around and getting to spend so much quality time.  She is a yoga instructor, massage therapist, and likes to go on hikes with her grandkids!  She is also an active quiltist (is that a word?? now it is!!) and gardener!!  Coolest. Grandma. Ever.:)

She will be truly missed.

Annnnnnnnnnnd of course, today is Father's Day!  We had my family over for a BBQ and then went to As You Wish (a pottery place where you can pick out a piece of blank art work and decorate/paint/stensil/puff paint to your heart's desire!)  Juli bought us 6 ice-cream bowls and we all painted one for my Dad.  Very fun!  I wish I would have taken pictures of all of them.... but I didn't so I'll just have to wait until after it comes out of the kiln!  They all turned out great.  Anyway, I'm convinced I have the best Dad in the whole world and love that there is a whole day to celebrate how wonderful he is. :-)  Love you, Dad!!

Playing With Fire

We recently watched an episode of House (one of my favorite shows) called "Open and Shut." This episode depicted a sad picture of marriage and I was tempted to turn it off without finishing it (I didn't). The patient was a woman in an "open marriage" where she and her husband had an agreement that they could sleep with other people because they both realized that "to expect ONE person to satisfy your needs for the rest of your life is unreasonable."

Immediately when she said this, red flags shot up and the claxon of alarm bells in my head resounded. Their mindset in their marriage was about "me" and "my needs." A marriage where the focus is on how I'm going to get my needs met, will result in disappointment. People are not perfect, no matter who you marry, and if you're looking to this one person to satisfy all your needs, they will let you down. The only One who can satisfy all our needs is God, who was clearly absent there. Perhaps, she simply meant all her sexual needs, but the point still stands if they had a healthy mindset of marriage, they wouldn't think of looking for satisfaction beyond their spouse. God created marriage and sex in such a way that it IS fulfilling (and intended) with one person. But that may not be the case when we take Him out of it and make sex all about our own gratification.

The other focus of the episode was on Dr. Chris Taub and HIS marriage. Those who don't watch the show should know that Taub has already had an affair once and there is a significant amount of distrust from his wife, Rachel. This patient got him to thinking about the possibility of "opening" up his marriage, which initially infuriated his wife. Taub admits to Rachel that there is a nurse at the hospital that is attracted to him that he frequently flirts with, which he sees as harmless because of his insistence that "nothing's happened." I would add a big "YET" to the end of that statement.

Ultimately, Rachel says she is not okay with an open marriage and Taub tells her all he wants is her. Yet, fast forward to the end of the show, setting: hospital parking lot. Homewrecker Nurse is overburdened with boxes and struggling to get them into her car. Taub is watching from his car. (Me: "DON'T YOU EVEN WALK OVER THERE!") Taub, being the chivalrous gent he's clearly shown himself to be, goes to her and helps her load the boxes into her trunk. Next thing you know, they're kissing passionately and he's getting into her car to go have an intimate rendezvous.

Here you have a man who has shown his area of weakness with a history of infidelity who is purposely subjecting himself to temptation. He has a woman at work that he is attracted to, and that is attracted to him, and he "harmlessly" flirts with her? How long will the flirting go on before it becomes something else? How many times can he put himself in situations with the potential of causing him to stumble before he falls flat on his face? I thought House's team was supposed to be smart!

Proverbs 6:27 also speaks to this - "Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned?" (NIV)