Jesus Paid It All (And totally coincidence on the verge of Easter)

One night you might look over and realize you are staring at a stranger lying next to you, the person you have climbed into bed every night with for the last decade or so.  You are alone.  If you are an incredibly lucky or blessed person, the stranger might be your best friend whom you have shared all the intricacies of life with for years, the father or mother to your children, the person who walked through the valley with you when you discovered you couldn't have children, the one who went through that time of depression with you, the one who sees you at your finest, who sees you at your most insecure, at your most insincere, the one who sees you at your worst.  That same person wouldn't flinch if you looked him straight in the face and said he had poop breath.  He would still be there.  No matter if you were blessed enough to find that utopian partner for that utopian sanction of marriage that many strive to attain, when you reach it, when you achieve it, it's not the utopian life you dreamed it would be.  No matter how good or great your marriage is or isn't, you find that even in the deepest corners of the most holy partnership and lifelong commitment, is a loneliness, an otherness.  You are alone.  You are other than that person.  You are united as one, and hopefully the closest relationship you will ever find yourself during this lifetime, and yet you are other than.  It's a distinct moment or set of moments throughout life, where you consciously are aware of this...that this is as good as it gets, this is the one person in this life I love the most, and it's still not enough. 

Enter children.  You welcomed those bundles of joy excitedly, hesitantly, and a little skittishly into your home, into your life. You had never imagined your love, your heart, could expand so.  You didn't even know you were capable of such fierce and unwavering love.  And then that child arrived.  You would do anything to protect them, to provide for them, to love them every day of your life until you are no longer able to do so this side of eternity.  You would change their pee soaked sheets in the middle of the night, you would hold them when they were sick, you would give your very life to save theirs.  Yet, even amidst that vehement and passionate love and devotion, you find it is still not enough.  There are always cracks and crevices where want creeps in, ache creeps in, discontent creeps in, loneliness creeps in.  You are alone.  None of it is enough.  Even in the absolute best, perfect, intimate relationships we have, we realize we are strangers to each other, strangers to this world, strangers that no one really, truly, earnestly, knows. 

Enter the search.  Now we search for something, anything, someone, anyone, to fill these holes.  Something to fill the WHAT that's missing, someone to fill the void that's missing.  We hunt and we hurt and we search and we seek.  Everything falls short, leaving us worse off and wanting something more. 

Enter sin.  We will try anything, us humans.  We will try anything to replace what's missing.  We will try whatever it takes to bandage these internal, eternal wounds, to no avail.  These are wounds and wants that cannot be quenched.  And yet we..you..I will certainly try.  And that's the sneaky thing about it.  Sin can creep up on you when you are most vulnerable and impressionable and deceive you into thinking you need this, them, that, her, him.  The deceiver whispers these lies because he relishes in seeing man crumble and fail.  And now the ache in your soul from the loneliness and brokenness of this world and its sin, has just been intensified from the sin you pursued in order to put a salve on it.  It's a spiral.  A deep, dark, suck you in, sort of tunnel into apartness.  You are apart.  You are apart from the One who created you, the One who loves you, the One who knows you.  You are apart from the One who put that ache there. We tried to replace God.

BUT.

God will not be replaced.

Enter Jesus.  BUT.  There is a great BUT.  But, Jesus paid it all.  He literally paid it all.  He paid everything.  He paid His very life, He put up, shut up, and put His money where His mouth was, laying down His life for a wicked and depraved generation, all so that we might be brought to Him and show His glory to all.  If I really believe that, if I truly and honestly, not just churchy rhetoric and trite cliche Christianisms believe it, than it HAS to touch every part of my life.  It HAS to touch the aches, the ugliness, the brokenness, the loneliness, the want.  It has to touch the something more we look and long for.  If my Jesus really hung up on the cross for me, it HAS to mean something to me as I lie in bed searching for meaning.  It HAS to mean something to the person so deep in loneliness and loathing, she can't bear looking at herself in the mirror. 

There is more to this story.  There is more to this life.  We are only in the beginning and a great Hero is yet to come on the scene.  He died once and for all for us, but He didn't strand us, He is with us, and He will come back for us.  Each life is worth something to God.  Oh how He loves you.,, He loves you.  It matters.  You matter.  I matter.  This life will disappoint and people will rip you wide open sometimes, but there is One.  And He paid it all.  He gave everything for you.  He gave everything for me so that when I'm living in the daily and mundane, I still have hope amidst the search.

To Keep From Losing it Sometimes.....

As I looked up to see my eldest' head tipped back, drinking the maple syrup from his plate like a man wandering for days in the desert, only to at last discover the one and only glass of ice cold refreshing water, I thought, this is going to be a treasure of a day.  I think all mamas know exactly what I'm talking about...a day so beautiful in mommyhood (that's motherhood for those of us knee deep in diapers and tantrums still) that your "little blessings," are now promoted to "treasures".  It's just going to be that kind of day.  I can tell it's extra special partly because it's only Tuesday and it's already been a full week of treasuring. 

To those unfamiliar with the terminology, I will address particular situations where one such term is not only used, but necessitated.  OK...I'm standing in the grocery line and as beads of sweat marshmallow size sweat pours down my face, I fumble through my purse to find my wallet, intermittently throwing one child or the other a snack, just ANY snack, to stave off the coming fireworks.  I know it's there, I just had it.  Oh. my. word. Where the heck it is?  As I'm starting to slightly panic, Korah here's a graham cracker, the precursor to my weekly nervous breakdown at the grocery store, Eli please sit down, do not climb out of the cart, I notice a line is starting to build behind me.  Oh Lord please help me.  Eli sit down now.  No you can't  open the applesauce right now.  And DO NOT touch your sister.  After what feels like hours, I find my wallet and it's at this point as I'm already holding up an entire store and my youngest is now breaking down from hunger, thirst, exhaustion, or because it's a Tuesday, I realize my son is dumping all the tomatoes and any rollable produce out of the cart, clearly an experimentation in gravity vs. velocity.  My son is such a little scientist, how sweet, what a little genius.  I am going to cultivate that inner scientist.....right into the car where I can strap his little tail to the seat and get the heck out of here!  It's at this point, smiling, down on all fours at the end of the check out lane, picking up tomatoes and kiwi, that I look lovingly and fondly at my little ones for all to see, and say, "What a blessing? Right? I love these little people and they are such sweet little blessings I get to have.  Now please sit down little blessing, and stop throwing the food out of the cart like you are being raised by a pack of wolves.  And no, you cannot pee pee in the bushes right now, it will have to wait."  For me, that is a blessing moment.

A treasure moment is finding yourself on the third floor of what you thought was a used book store,(bad idea anyway) but soon discovered it is more of a used book stand, highlighting as an upscale ladies' boutique with expensive, fancy items at little hand level, no elevator, pouring rain, infant baby bjorned to your chest and  a potty training two year old who after running around in a mad dash to look at everything, little rat paws swiping this way and that, stops suddenly with a look of desperation, grabbing his bottom.  He is pooping.  Oh crap, he is pooping.  he is going to poop right here and I have nothing and no way of getting them and the stroller down the stairs in time to use the frog potty in the car.  And poop he does.  BAAAAAAD.  And because with most things in life I have always been a "go big or go home," kind of girl, he is in straight underwear from day one.  No pull ups.  Sooooooo, as I stand hunched over my child in the pouring rain with my baby dangling/wedging between my chest and the child I am trying to clean, only to realize I have no back up clothing and will be throwing this pair of underwear away, I think of my little treasures. 

And that is what today looks like it might be promising to be-a treasured day.  A day where I will refer to my children as little treasures, for fear of all out losing it.  It will be a grace-filled day for a graceless and tired mama.  Just keeping on keeping on. Keeping on with my treasures.

Michael Flatley's Love Child

I'm dancing a jig right now, wearing green, drinking Guinness, and rooting for Notre Dame.  I really and truly do love ALL things Irish.  This passionate and senseless devotion is rooted in absolutely nothing.  I am not Irish.  I don't have any allegiance to anything Irish- school, sport, or person.  And yet I will get in a knife fight to the death, in a dark alley, defending any of my fair-skinned comrades.  Maybe it all goes back to Lucky Charms.  I'm really not sure.  All I can say is I AM LORD OF THE  DANCE. 

All kidding aside, I am semi-dead-serious.  I eat, sleep, and breathe the Dance.  Michael Flatley is my hero and I want him to carry my love child.  Presently, if not for the restraining order, that would be one of the first things checked off on my bucket list:  17.  Have Michael Flatley's love child.  Once upon a time, in my younger years, I think I was actually scouted for a role in Lord of the Dance.  I don't want to brag, and I am not sure it was a leading role or anything, but it was kind of a big deal.  And to be clear, I am not entirely sure I WAS scouted, but you could imagine if I was right?  And by all that I mean that I was not scouted and all, but, did in fact attend a production of Riverdance and wore my own Rachel brand of riverdance shoes with my formal attire.  You just never know when you might find yourself sitting watching, clapping, singing, crying (yes I said singing,) along to Micheal's beautiful display of musical, dancing prowess (I thought the crying might have escaped you, but yes, I said crying,) when lo, and behold, SNIPED, you have been ambushed.  There is a scout in the audience and he or she is looking for new, raw, young, REAL talent to join the troupe.  And because of that incredibly unlikely and obviously not possible, yet all too real scenario, I did indeed sit amongst the commoners attending the show, only to be caught at a moment's notice dancing my heart out there in my seat, my feet but a mere appendage with a mind and rhythm all their own. 

Whether it's been preparing for my debut, or simply exhibitioning my skills as a riverdancer in small productions in my apartment or in the hallway of an adjoining dorm, possibly jigging it up with all my heart 100% sober through an Irish pub (purely hypothetical) I have always felt and lived the music.  I think I am Irish.  I wish I was Irish.  Maybe I am Irish.  All I know is I vehemently support and cheer for Notre Dame and I know nothing about them.  I actually drove to the campus one time on a spur of the moment several hour road trip with my BFF who shall remain nameless because I don't want Susan's name dragged through the mud...she is about to get married and she has a lot going on, the least of which is defending her choices to drive 6 hours to an Irish college campus, just to look at it and walk through the chapel because of my love for the Irish. 

Green is my favorite color.  I used to draw freckles all over my face and wish for red hair.  I love Lucky Charms.  I think there really is gold at the end of the rainbow and that leprechauns are not only real, but representative of my homeland.  One day I will return to the motherland, and by that, I mean I am actually a native of Michigan and not only wasn't born in Ireland, but have never been even close to visiting, yet one day I WILL return.  You do the math on that.  I don't know what else to say so I'm peacing out because I am annoying myself.  Please disregard all of the above. 

Speaking the Truth in Love

I have had a couple different opportunities recently to either sweetly smile with a listening ear to a friend, seemingly in agreement, or to speak the truth in love, though difficult to hear.  Both situations were incredibly difficult to navigate through, regardless of the approach I chose to take, making it all the more necessary for me to use raw, unabashed, real-friend honesty.  Each was and is a friend going through a heartache in life I have never experienced myself and yet, hurt with/for, cried for, and yearned for them, so badly wanting their hurts healed and prayers answered. 

I call them opportunities, although at the time they happen, they feel more like an elephant sitting on your chest, weighing you down, making it nearly impossible to breathe, giving you heart palpitations, clammy palms, and sweaty armpits.  It sometimes is such a difficult task to say something to a friend that might sting a little or that they may not want to hear, simply because it is the truth and the right thing to do.  However,  that is precisely what they are:  opportunities.  And that is exactly what we are to do:  speak the truth IN LOVE.  For some only God knows reason, (and I am deadly serious because only HE knows the reason HE burdened gifted me with the uncanny knack for speaking the truth in tough situations)I am continually placed in situations where it would be oh so easy to let some things slide, rather than speak up, and yet HE continues to sit on my chest pushing the air out, until I give in and speak(and yes Lord, I just insinuated you were the elephant I was talking about earlier, but I meant it in the most flattering way..jk...but seriously...I am serious though God, you DO sometimes feel like an elephant sitting on my chest...but also I am kidding a little...but you did make me in your image as a jokester, a truthful jokester at that, so yes, I AM kidding, but yes I AM telling the truth, jk...but seriously, I AM.) even when it feels so uncomfortable and hard to do so. 

I have never just jumped for joy at the chance to say something contrary or confrontational (although I like to kid around with friends and family and instigate for sure)a hard pill to swallow, and yet time after time God places me in these situations.  And How? you might ask, do I know I'm not just perpetuating the cycle myself by say, instigating with said friends and family?  And I will tell you How.  How I know this, is because my entire life thus far, at the ripe age of 31, I repeatedly get phone calls from different friends or family members, confessing, confiding, or asking for counsel.  Each person always wants to know, "What do you think?" or "What am I supposed to do?"  There you have it folks, no easier way to corner a girl that has permanently taken truth serum, than to not give her a way out by asking her a point blank question.  Thank you Lord for that.  Both the truth serum and the cornering I mean.  I guess the point of all this is this:  it's hard, hard, hard as crap sometimes to speak the truth of Christ and HIS principles to a world that doesn't believe HE is the answer or that HIS principles apply to them, and many times, a million times harder to speak that same truth to your fellow believer who supposedly does believe.  And YET....we need to do just that.  There are times for everything..times for quietly listening because maybe it's not her time yet to hear and God hasn't told you to do so, times for nodding in agreement, and times for speaking up.  Whatever the time it is for you right now, if you are about to get your phone call, will you give in to the elephant sitting on your chest and do what HE asks?

My Meeting with Harlequin

I write this, one full glass of red wine under my belt, ensuring me both a headache in the morning and nonsense here on the page.  When I was a wee young lass of a mere 9 or 10, I remember stumbling upon my Grandma Hawley's collection of books.  At the time, having no frame of reference for this sort of thing, I didn't know to classify what my sweet, pure grandmother had on her shelves, into trash for the soul, literary porn for women.  I only knew I was unsure of what hair products the wild-haired Fabio look alike used to get that feathered look on the cover, and why the girl seemed to always have her shirt barely covering her nipples, when my mom had always told me strangers were not allowed to see my swimsuit parts.  I however, was a precocious tyke and read anything and everything I could get my little grade school paws on, including grandma's Harlequin romance novels.  This was my first introduction to sex.

I remember reading those novels, not fully grasping everything that was going on, but knowing enough to hide it from my grandma that I was reading them.  I would lock myself in her bedroom where we usually watched cartoons on her t.v, and sneak reading one after the other, always putting them back faster than you could say jumpin' johnny jack rabbit,(WHATTTTT?!) whenever I was done or when she approached the bedroom.  It's interesting that even when you don't fully understand what's going on, something in you usually senses what is right or wrong.  I couldn't have verbalized it at that point, but despite the way the words stirred me, or maybe because of, I felt like it needed to be kept hidden.  I remember those words in those books painting pictures for me, growing my imagination.  It aroused something in me reading about things I didn't yet know, but somehow knew I longed for, even at a very young age.  Those were the first sexual seeds planted, and so began the war in my young mind with which every person struggles. 

It was as though I had been given admittance into a club I wasn't old enough to enter, but the bouncer had looked the other way because I was cute, only to realize when I entered I could watch everyone order drinks, and yet couldn't order anything myself without a proper ID.  I shouldn't have been there.  I shouldn't have been allowed in that club, the club where I could look, watch others get drinks, and still be part of an environment I could never fully be a part of because I just wasn't old enough.  (poor analogy, but what can I say, it's late and again, I'm running on a little sleep and a little wine)  I think back to those times in my grandma's room and usually laugh about it when I tell the husband, about how I smuggled Harlequin reading regularly.  It all seems so absurd and smutty and like nothing I would ever read in present day, merely a funny story to never tell my children :) haha, it is actually opposite day, I will definitely tell them something like that someday......And yet, I can't help but feel like that was the first time sex was twisted and tainted for me from the way it was intended.  If I were to really dig deep and attempt to catalogue every minute event or word said by some smart bleeeep kid at recess, I'm sure I could come up with much earlier seeds sown.  We all could.  Our world revolves around sex--it's just so perverted and distorted from the original design. 

Conflicted in Charlotte

This is one of those days I just MUST write.  No known reason, no known direction, just words a flowing.  I have been feeling a restlessness lately, deep down in my soul.  It's a restlessness stirring up discontent inside me.  It keeps poking and jabbing, wiggling it's way right smack into the middle of my mind, until all I can think about are all the things with which I am dissatisfied.  The interesting thing is, none of the "things" I'm angsty over are material or physical things.  It's not that I necessarily want more money, a bigger or different house, a more tone body,(the list could go on I'm sure)but instead, have a quiet heaviness over intangibles.

 I'm so conflicted over facebook, this blog, phones, social media in general.  Actually, those are symptoms of the real problem, catalysts even that seem to stir the pot in my soul.  I feel like I'm being sucked into the portal, drinking the koolaid, so to speak.  Before we know it, everything and everyone is accessible, nothing is sacred, everyone tries the game of one-upmanship, bigger and better, best and perfect foot forward, I want it NOW and with a snap of the fingers, or click of the mouse.  I know I am just rambling now, but I have had such a heavy heart about all this and the direction our society, or bringing it even closer to home, my family is headed.  I don't want to be on a computer, talking on a phone, texting, or watching T.V all my life.  And I CERTAINLY don't want my children living a stagnant life like that.  I want to read, play soccer, run, sew, play games with my children, laugh with my husband,cook, be fully present all the time, in a way that is becoming increasingly difficult in this world.  With the increase and advancement of technology comes a huge price to pay I believe.  I am struggling to balance it, sure I am by no means what most would refer to as really into social media, technologically savvy, or even really up to date on it all, and yet maybe too much for my own liking. 

Ahhh, even this blog one minute I love writing it, the next minute I feel self-awareness knocking at my back door, asking if PRIDE is there to come out and play.  One minute I think maybe, just MAYBE one little thing you write that the Lord has/is dealing with you in or bringing you through, will encourage just ONE person who might read your story.  Then the next minute,  I am being plagued by my conscience asking me if I really am writing because I love writing and would love to encourage others, OR is it because you want attention, want to be known, want to have others think you're really neat, really cool, really vulnerable, oh "she's really real."  When I think about it that way, the latter, it makes me want to puke, to weed out all that crap, all the selfish motivation, all the pride in anything.  I don't want to have pride in anything, but Jesus.  Let me boast only in Him, to make much of Him.  And yet today I just feel icky and want to scrap the whole thing, wondering if that really is my singular motivation.  I want to write, write, write and not tell a single soul.  I want to chuck my computer through the window and never go on facebook again and have everyone telling me how perfect their lives our while I feel such disgust for the very thing that also keeps me connected to so many friends.  About twice a week, I start to deactivate my fb account because I just feel like it's too much of a cloud of comparison that makes you feel like your life might not measure up, and then decide that I can't because it's my point of contact with soooooo many people from different seasons and actual states in my life.  So, for this moment I guess the benefits outweigh the negatives for me, but it truly is moment to moment and pushing me to renegotiate some things in my life.  I'm not even sure all this made sense or what, if any, conclusions I have come to, but I do know this is the Holy Spirit's prompting once again, because anytime I feel this heavy about something, this uncomfortable, dragging my feet a bit, it turns out to be Him sharpening and weeding me some more. 

Mommy and Me

OK, so I am a liar.  Big. Fat. Liar.  So much for my blogging once a week.  I am barely doing the once a month thing.  Now that we all know not to trust me, let's not let that become a wedge between us, harboring bitterness, festering like a wound, until it  finally explodes one day on the old lady at the grocery store, who casually mentioned there wasn't a good selection of produce, clearly alluding to the fact I have not been attending to exploiting myself via the interweb as of late. 

With that out of the way, life is such a funny thing. It has such a funny way of sneaking up on you.
Life has a funny, funny way of helping you out.
Helping you out.

Hmmm, that sounded like a song?  Where was I...life really is such a funny thing.  A beautiful, ugly, wonderful, harsh, adventurous, and hard thing.  And God is constantly, in His ever-loving, gentle, and sometimes not so gentle way, teaching me and refining me in areas.  These are at times areas I am directly aware of already, at times areas I am vaguely aware of, but may not want to face up to at the moment, and still other times I just plain don't even realize they exist until the Holy Spirit oh so patiently points them out to me.....over and over and over.  Alas, twas the case with this particular issue.

As some are aware, I haven't had the best relationship with my mother for a variety of reasons.  Growing up with a mother that was an undiagnosed and unmedicated bi-polar until the age of 15, made for some excruciating memories.  These were memories not talked about within our family circle, nor really even alluded to until several years ago.  On the one hand I feel like they are vague and nonexistent to my mother, while perhaps on the other, magnified or exaggerated for my siblings and me, although I wouldn't know because we have never talked about them or her in that way.  Due to this, unbeknownst to me, (and sometimes beknownst :) ) I have had some bitterness and resentment built up toward her, and truthfully did neither fully care, nor fully recognize it.  I have always admired and noticed when other girls have really great relationships with their mothers, but honestly didn't even desire for myself because 1.  I didn't think I needed or wanted it since I was not used to it, and 2. I did not think it was attainable,(a lot happens in my subconscious apparently)and took for granted as an unspoken truth that the relationship I have had with my mom, was, is, and always will be the same.  A static relationship with no real depth. 

However, enter the Lord Almighty and His sweet, sweet, nudging and prodding Spirit.  Over the course of the last couple months I have been slowly feeling the Lord layer by layer, pulling at and tugging away, the veil over my eyes.  He has been sweetly singing in my ear lullabies of love, life giving words, breaking the bondage of lies the enemy has deceitfully whispered for years, until I no longer distinguished them as such, and bestowing graciously in me an alien desire and appreciation for my mother.  He has been planting seeds of restoration in my heart through His word, sweet people He has placed in my life, and  my truth-speaking husband.  It is all such a work in progress, but if these are to be the words forever cemented in my mind's eye, these words I write here to both remember and regret, then I want to accurately chart the voyage He is taking me.  I want to be honest in all things, both my successes, ever giving Him the glory, as well as my failures, being able to look back at one more notch on my life staff and say, "For He is good."