thirty.nine.

I have tried at least twice, to write down what 39 feels like.  Birthday morning was normal other than I knew I was getting myself breakfast because: birthday.  The day was sweet with lots of kind wishes from family, coworkers and friends.  I got a cookie cake, a not so delicious cake from a local Mexican bakery, flowers, and then had dinner with friends.

And I really did want to write down what 39 felt like to me.

But the truth is it felt a little anticlimactic to me. 

This morning I woke up and realized that the difference, the change has been subtly occurring all year.  What felt like a breakdown was more a break apart of some delusions that I think I held on to far too tightly.

I remember after my 27^th birthday suddenly feeling 27.  Something clicked in my head and it shifted a lot of who I was.  I remember that shift being very defining and also wildly liberating.  Even eleven years later, that alteration, has stuck with me.

I’ve been looking at this year all wrong.  Last night, in conversation with some friends, I could see something in their faces while we caught up.  It wasn’t shame, or pity, it was confusion because they could see something I couldn’t.  They saw difference and I had only been focused on loss.  I thought about it last night as I was driving home, but it wasn’t until I was driving to work this morning that it all hit me.

This year has been a fracturing.  I think as adults we are constantly building up glass menageries for our lives.  We know that they will come down at some point, but we keep building. For me, this year, many of my menageries shattered.  And I felt like some jacked-up Cinderella being left to pick up the shards of glass that were my life while clinging to some idyllic faux-fantasy that a prince my come and rescue me, or better yet, I’d find those elusive glass slippers.

I’ve spent the entire year trying to catch my breath.  It occurred to me this morning that all the things I’d built were suffocating me and what I’ve really been doing is trying to figure out how to breathe all over again.

This probably makes sense to no one else but me, but this thought… this awareness… was redeeming to my heart today!          

A few weeks ago, I started a 40 by 40 list.  Right now, I have about 25 things on that list.  Nothing necessarily major, but things that I want to do or experience or try.

Not coincidentally, Celine Dion’s “Taking Chances” circulated through my iTunes while I was typing this. LOL.

I am determined, one way or another, that this year, will be better than last.  I can say with certainty, that my 30’s have been so much better than my 20’s.  This decade has been wild and an absolute blast.  Here’s to finishing out FOUR DECADES with a bang.  

xoxo,

God of the small things

My friends and I used to have these relatively large Halloween parties (pre-kids) and we would get together and eat and dress up and laugh.  Trying to figure out what I would wear each year was fun!  In late 2010, I had very specific idea in mind and went to the mall one Thursday night to get what I needed.  I was very disheartened when I couldn’t find what I wanted (a red track suit… I’d hoped to go as Sue Sylvester that year!), so I went to look for boots.  After an hour, I realized I wasn’t going to find any that bit because I have big calves.   My mom’s last minute suggestion was for me to dress up as Flo from the Progressive commercials.  To date, that is still one of the easiest and my favorite costumes to wear!

So, I treated myself to a gift.  I bought myself a ring!  It was simple and silver, but was the first big gift I’d ever really bought myself and I would wear it every day.

And I did.  And I loved it.  Over the years, I have gotten a number of comments on the ring because it just fits my hand well.

I spent Easter weekend with my family this year.  My brother flew in and we all celebrated with my extended family at my Aunt’s house.  My aunt lives near Callaway Gardens, and that’s about 3 hours from my home.  After lunch was over, I put my ring and the other ring I was wearing in my pocket and washed dishes.  I remember pulling my keys out to get something out of my car.  Right before we left, I realized that both of my rings were gone.

I was able to find the other ring but because I was in a time crunch to get my brother to the airport, I left without finding my ring.

I wish I could tell you that I wasn’t heartbroken or sad but that would be a BIG FAT lie. 

A few weeks later, I went and bought myself another ring because my hand felt weirdly naked.  I have rings, but THIS ring had just been a constant for me.  I’d bought my car and signed the paperwork on my house wearing this ring.  

While I had not forgotten about the ring, I understand that it is insignificant in the grand scheme of well, everything.

One of the craziest parts of finishing school is not being completely consumed with anxiety about some assignment that is due.  I have been so wrapped up in just finishing (and not to sound any more dramatic than usual, but… basically just not dying) that I never thought any further than this.  People asked me, but I gave vague, ridiculously answers because I honestly just didn’t know. 

But last night, I realized I had the free time, I so went into my guest room and decided to pick up my faithful hobby and crochet something.

Except I didn’t know where any of my hooks were!

I found two bags and hoped they had a project that I could start on (and hopefully my favorite little scissors and a crochet hook) and dumped them out on my guest bed.

And I saw it.

In the bottom of a bag that I haven’t touched in 6 months was my ring.

In the importance of things that matter, my ring is so beyond insignificant.

But it mattered to me.

And God, in His infinite goodness saw fit to pick up that ring and bring it 180 miles to me.

(As you can imagine, I was a crying hot mess in my guest room last night.)

I have not forgotten just how faithful God is.   He has proven His love for me over, and over, and over, AND OVER, AND OVER, AND OVER.

But last night, chocking back sobs, I thanked God for His love of my small things.

And I am reminded in BIG BOLD LETTERS IN MY HEART that if He is concerned about the minutia, then he is 1000% concerned with the big things.

::fin::

Initial disclaimer: I don’t keep this blog up like I should.  No apologies here. My life is busy.  One day, maybe sooner than later, I’ll pull in all my archives, but that day is not today.

Two years ago, I decided, almost on a whim, to go back to school and get my master’s.  This stemmed from a lot of areas in my life where I felt inadequate and less than, but all of the sudden, I had to at least level the playing field.

But I took a gamble, and got accepted to my alma mater, and tried to take things one step at a time.  At the start of my second semester, I got involved at my church again.  This was something that I had prayed about for the six months prior because I had not stepped down from serving under the best of terms and just wanted to do what the Holy Spirit was telling me to do.  2016 was a pretty great year!  I ended the year on a less than stellar note with an academic hiccup but a promise to myself to do better and a lot of hope for the new year.

Enter 2017.

I wish that I could say that 2017 started on a high note, but I made it in two weekends and some things, some relationships, started to unravel without warning.  I have asked myself a lot of times why things bothered me so much, and why I put so much stock in certain relationships.  (The verdict is still out.)  But by early March, I noticed that some facets of my life were deteriorating and I honestly did not know why.  There were (at the same time) other things in my life where, for the first time, I knew I was doing the right things, I was pouring into some people purposefully and intentionally and was seeing things that the Lord had birthed in my heart come to fruition.

But sometime near the end of March, all hell broke loose.

I was more lost in school than ever before.

Change at work began happening at breakneck speed and it was a “hop on or get left behind” sort of situation.

I left my church.

People that I thought were my friends proved in an instant that I was insignificant and had no value to them.

All of the stress began to manifest itself in physical ways.  I experienced a true anxiety attack (and subsequent attacks) for the first time in my life.  Sleep was (and still kind of is) elusive.  

Like I said… all hell broke loose.

The last 131 days have probably been the hardest days I’ve experienced in a long time.  I do not understand exactly what happened.  I do not know where the choo-choo train of my life derailed.

But it did.

I did the only thing I knew to do: self-preservation.  I pulled away.   I disconnected social media.  I removed people from my life the most reasonable way that I could without being a total fruit loop.  I poured myself into work and school.  I found another church to attend.  I have tried to process what happened.  I am left with more questions than answers and a general disclaimer to anyone that asks that I don’t want to understand the ‘why’s’.  I just want to move forward.

Early in this nightmare, I was told that people believed I was living my life through a group of teenage girls that I was just trying to invest in (in a small group) setting.  That sentence is burned in my brain.  When I heard it, I know that my face turned blood red and I got instantly angry.  I did, and I still do believe, that sentence is a lie and that it comes from a place of pain and dissatisfaction that got projected on me instead of being dealt with.

But still I am left jaded and heartbroken.

I am three days away from walking across a graduation stage and accepted my MBA.  I have worked my butt off for that piece of paper.  I have poured blood, sweat, tears, prayers, and more sleepless nights that I can count to finish that degree.  I have cried out to God, and I have cussed a good bit.  I’ve rededicated my heart during more than one final exam or final project, and I have celebrated and danced and rejoiced when a class was finished. I wish that all of the other nonsense of the last four months didn’t overshadow this coming weekend because I am proud of me, but it does.

In the last two weeks, I have been able to breathe.  I have been able to see some parts of what happened with more clarity, less hurt, and more grace.  Today, in one final God sized moment, I saw grace like I could have never imagined and wound up sobbing in my office.

Because God, in all that God is, loves me.

And the brevity that sentence carries is more than I will ever be able to comprehend.

I do not know what the remainder of 2017 will look like.  Some relationships are unsalvageable, and others… I just don’t know if I want to invest any energy into them.

But there is this: “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Phillipians 1:6

On Saturday, I will walk across that stage with my family in the audience.  I am proud of me. (I didn’t quit!)  I will spend a week at the beach. I will read.  I will probably crochet.  I will finish clearing the craziness out of my head, when I come back home, I get a restart.

And here’s to hoping that the remainder of 2017 is full of joy and love and hope.

can you hear me now?

A hundred years ago, I had a blog that I kept up with regularly.  I blogged the funny, the mundane, the every day, and the profound things that I see in the world.  Because of some stuff that happened at work, I stopped writing.  I stopped allowing this to be an outlet for me when I was happy, sad, or frustrated.

I don't know the last time I blogged.  I don't really care.

Today, I find myself, trapped at my house because my car battery has died in my garage.  Y'all... this is my luck.  This is also my life.  After living in my home for 3 years, this is the second time that I find myself waiting on a towing company to come by and rescue my carriage from it's covering.  Special shout out to The Lord for giving me the desire for Starbucks this morning so I didn't discover this two days from now.

Right now, I refuse to cry about this.  (Normally, category 4 freak-out with tears, some cursing, and a general pity party.)  I am so spent from the madness around me that I don't have any tears to cry on this situation.  I'm having to save them.

I'M HAVING TO SAVE MY TEARS BECAUSE THAT IS WHERE MY LIFE IS AT.

Because it seems to be my spiritual gift, I could go on here, throw myself a humdinger of a pity party, and write about my woes.  {Real and otherwise.  Instead, allow me to offer a PSA of sorts both to myself and to anyone reading who needs a reminder:

1)  BE A DECENT HUMAN BEING.  IT'S NOT THAT HARD.
2) Loving people is fun and easy.  Why don't people want to love other people?
3) Is it really hard to be kind????
4) It is apparently much harder to be civilized.
5) Yes, I know that I can be hard to love.  Surprisingly, that's deliberate.  I've been hurt to many times.
6) Common sense is as easy to find in others as it is for me to find a husband.  Apparently all the unicorns congregate together.

peace out girl scout,