Reminders

I am sitting here in my house tonight, it's quiet, we have everything we need.  I am just reminded, even though I wasn't looking for Him today, of my constant need for Him, whether I acknowledge it or not.  Everyone has "those days".  I was on a sales call today and ran into another salesman who said, "I think I'm having one of 'those lives'"  And I chuckled, but I could so relate.  I wanted to ask him if he is in a season of difficulty... because they are all seasons.  But I'm so thankful for Exodus 14:14 and the constant promise that if we (according to the Message version) "close our mouths", God will do all that needs to be done!  :) 

Exodus 14:14

¹⁴ God will fight the battle for you.
    And you? You keep your mouths shut!”

Equal Yoking

Well, I've been around the blog world since what seems like before 'Nam.  Things and people have come and gone in my life.  And boy have things changed!  And I've taken break after break, tried to start new blogs, and what not, but in the end, I think in blog posts and I have a commitment to this particular blog, a loyalty, if you will, that won't let me quit this specific chronicle, so here I am again!  Whew!

What have I learned in two years of hard living and hard lessons?  Wow, SO much!  But one thing I've learned that has come to me in the past few days is this.  When God talks about being equally yoked with someone, He wasn't (Granma forgive me) talking necessarily about Christianity and your belief system.  I have come to believe that He was talking about being with someone who was, well, I don't really have a better way to say it... equally yoked.  When I got married at age 27, I thought I had won the marriage lottery.  Everything was perfect!  But I was a country girl,  he was a city boy.  I was a (for lack of a better term) "tractor pull" and he was a "wine taster."  I was raised in a small town (if you want to know more about that, consult John Mellencamp.)  He was raised in the city.  Farm and country life were in my blood.  He had spent a little time on his grandparents "farm" (acreage in Mississippi with a big garden), but it was always more of a novelty.  I think he didn't really "get" what it meant to me that my great grandfather had gotten my family home through the homestead act.  I know of about 6 addresses he had occupied as a child.  I grew up in ONE house from the time I was almost two until I moved to college.  I grew up with a Daddy who I thought could do anything and a Mama... not a "mom" like city-folk have, but a "Mama!"  Not Mommy like rich kids.  Mama!  What people from small Southern towns have.  Mama and Granma knew how to set a formal table.  We never EVER served ourselves from the stove on Sunday.  We never EVER sat down without a real cloth napkin at our plate.  So... all that to say that neither of us grew up "wrong", but miles and worlds apart. 

I was reading back through some old journals of mine and I found entries where I was wondering, even back in 1996, if I would ever get to move back to a place where I felt at "home."  I'll say, since that time, I've moved to a smaller community and I'm known by alot of people and I now (since being single) have started banking at a small bank where they know my name.  There's just a difference in the way we do things that, neither right or wrong, is just fundamentally different.  I don't think any of these things are deal breakers, by any stretch of the imagination.  I was sailing along quite happily and contently the way things were.  Please don't hear me criticizing or complaining because, by no means is that what I'm doing.  I loved my ex-husband's family.  I loved being in that life.  But now that I've been out of that world long enough to take a real look at it, I can see that there were some quintessential differences that were not "equal yoking."  I have many fears and worries as a single mom.  And I'm not "playing the single mom card", don't feel sorry for me, I have a wonderful life!  But I do worry about some things being alone that I didn't worry about before.  I lock all my windows now before I go to bed.  I miss the luxury of being able to sleep with the windows open.  And that's just one small example.  But on the flip side, there are alot of aspects of my life that I have "reclaimed" (to steal a phrase from my months of counseling.)  There are some things that I feel far more at home with now than I did before.  I don't like many of the aspects of single life at this juncture (the world is made for couples at 43.)  But there are some things that just fit better now... the little rebel girl who went barefoot and wore John Lennon sunglasses and always marched to the beat of her own drum has now regained her voice in many ways.  She was always in there, but she felt that she needed to be a "respectable adult" for many years.  So... I needed a place to lay this down and this felt like the safest place to do it.  My faithful friends who followed this journey have earned the right to hear some of the good things that have come from the very bad things that brought them. 

Love y'all!

Running... barefoot

So, most of you know, if you've been here in the past year, that I'm a bit of a running addict.  I have used running as therapy for so long now that I literally cannot live without it.  I'm not overstating it.  Case in point... I just ran the Music City 1/2 Marathon a couple of weeks ago (my time was underwhelming and I was very disappointed with the run overall, but that's a whole other topic.)  Anyway, I trained for this half with a stress fracture in my right hip and I can honestly say I've NEVER experienced the kind of pain I was in while running for the last three weeks of training.  Child birth was a walk in the park compared to running on a fractured hip bone.  Aye-aye-aye.

So, I was told that I need to rest the hip for 6 to TWELVE (that's right, I said, 12!!!) weeks.  Gulp!  I can't run?  At ALL?????  You say what?  So, here I sat for the past 2 weeks, getting more and more depressed.  When your body is used to a certain level of adrenaline and exercise induced endorphins, it's very difficult to go cold turkey.  SO... I have filled my sad time with a book, Born to Run (which I highly recommend to ANYONE who has even the tiniest interest in running... it's not a book about how to run, but rather a book about lots of different people who run, these "running people" come from every single country and culture, but they are very interesting characters.)  In reading the book, I have become CONVINCED that my injuries are primarily from wearing running shoes.

There's tons of science and explanation behind it, you'll just have to read the book if you want to know all the data, etc.  Or Google "train to run barefoot" and you'll get an overload of information.  But basically, what I've realized is that God created our feet to be the perfect running platform.  He put the arch in the middle of our foot.... ever wonder why?  Because the arch is the strongest structure and can bare the most load in architecture.  That's right!  The more weight you put on an arch, the stronger it gets because it presses in on itself.  But what happens when you put a support beam under an arch?  You destroy it's strength because you put the weight on the support beam... eventually the arch will collapse.  Helllllooooooo!?!?!  Isn't that exactly what we've done to our feet?  God's design, of course, is perfect and ingenious.  So, I'm going back to the basics.

Before you chastise me about glass and sharp objects, I bought some VERY flimsy, flat, minimalist running sneakers.  I am wearing them all but 1/2 mile on very short runs right now.  I did 2.5 yesterday, 2 in the flimsy shoes, .5 totally barefoot.  I'm building up my thick soles, I'm trying to do this the right way (for once.)

So, if you're not a runner, this blog post has probably been the most boring ever... but if you want a fascinating read about people who can run up to 300 (yes, I said three HUNDRED) miles at a time... pick up Born to Run... it's great and very interesting!

Wide awake at 2:00 AM

So, I'm awake at 2 AM... I shouldn't be.  I have two kids who are likely going to be home tomorrow with the same thing I was home sick with last week.  I should be in bed.  Dangit!  And I certainly SHOULD be doing something else if, in fact, I insist on being awake... I should at least be folding laundry or something else reasonably productive.

Instead, here I sit with a jar of almost completely consumed nutella, a long list of new pins on Pinterest, and the song Breathe by Anna Nalick stuck in my head!  :)  (I think it's stuck because, well, it's 2 AM... and that's how the song starts....



Two am, and she calls me 'cause I'm still awake 
Can you help me unravel my latest mistake? 
I don't love him, winter just wasn't my season 
Yeah, we walk through the doors, so accusing their eyes 
Like they have any right at all to criticize 
Hypocrites, you're all here for the very same reason 

'Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable 
And life's like an hourglass glued to the table 
No one can find the rewind button, girl 
So cradle your head in your hands 
And breathe, just breathe 
Oh, breathe, just breathe 

May he turn twenty-one on the base at Fort Bliss 
Just today he sat down to the flask in his fist 
Ain't been sober since maybe October of last year 
Here in town you can tell he's been down for a while 
But, my God, it's so beautiful when the boy smiles 
Want to hold him, maybe I'll just sing about it 

'Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable 
And life's like an hourglass glued to the table 
No one can find the rewind button, boys 
So cradle your head in your hands 
And breathe, just breathe 
Oh, breathe, just breathe 

There's a light at each end of this tunnel, you shout 
'Cause you're just as far in as you'll ever be out 
And these mistakes you've made, you'll just make them again 
If you only try turning around 

Two am, and I'm still awake, writing a song 
If I get it all down on paper, it's no longer 
Inside of me, threatening the life it belongs to 
And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd 
'Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud 
And I know that you'll use them, however you want to 

But you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable 
And life's like an hourglass glued to the table 
No one can find the rewind button now 
Yeah, sing it if you'll understand 
And breathe, just breathe 
Oh, breathe, just breathe 
Oh, breathe, just breathe 
Oh, breathe, just breathe

Seems like I've said this alot....

But is anyone still out there?  It's weird to me how much I think about my blog buddies... I wonder what y'all are up to.  I wonder if anyone wonders what I'm up to! :)

Anyway, what I'm up to is this...

Running... I'm training for a half marathon in April and not feeling too confident about it either.  I am just not feeling it the way I once did.  A knee injury in my right knee has produced hip pain and joint pain on the left side, most likely from over compensation... ugh.  Getting old sucks but it certainly beats the alternative I suppose.  :)

Living... I am not certain about the future at all.  I'm scared alot about practical matters now... money, insurance, health, etc. etc.  Where I once focused on happiness and would I ever survive, now all that is falling into place, but I start to worry about the stuff that I don't have answers for.  But I know that God has provided for me EVERY single day of my life.  I know that He is faithful.  And I know that when I leap, the net will appear.  So that's what I'm focused on now... just focusing on the dream and ultimate goal (raise successful and compassionate kids, glorify my God while doing it, and have as much fun as possible along the way.)  I think if I keep my eyes on the prize, so to speak, the rest of the stuff will reveal itself in time.

So... that's me.  What have YOU been up to lately?

Some days...

Since the holidays, I've felt so much better about my life.  It's weird, I've always heard about people being sad that they are alone during the holidays, but I always thought you could rationalize it and think your way through it.  Of course, that's not the case in matters of the heart.  But anyway, I woke up on January 3 and WOW, I felt so much better.

So, I move along at a normal pace of life, not feeling so desperate and down as I did a month ago.  But then it hits me, out of the blue.  Something as simple as having to haul the 5,000 pound bulk laundry box up to the laundry room can smack me in the face and just piss me off.  But then I realize that I'm just feeling sorry for myself and.....

Goodbye to the year from the pit!

Okay, I actually never really like New Years.  I think I've said it before, but it's worth repeating... I guess this is a dark side of my psyche, but I always think at the stroke of midnight, "What if?"  What if this is the year your sister dies, what if this is the year you find out you have cancer, or what if this is the year your marriage ends?  I rarely see New Years as an opportunity for a fresh start.  A long time ago, a friend of mine questioned why people make New Years resolutions.  He said, "If I find something in myself that needs to be changed, I change it today, not a specific date on the calendar."  That was a profound thing for me to hear.  I've lived by that ever since.  I no longer say "I'll start running on Monday or I'll do the laundry more in the new year, etc. etc."  If I think something needs to change, I just start changing it.

But THIS year, this year is quite different for me.  I cannot WAIT to see 2011 go down in flames.  If 2011 were a person at the party, I'd flip it a giant bird, shove it out the door and slam and lock the door with or without 2011 having it's coat! :)  I can't wait for 2012.  Although, I know that things can ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS be worse, I think SURELY God will do something amazing in my life in 2012.  I feel that this will be a year of redemption.  This will be a year He whispers to me that I am His and that He has great plans for me.  If He doesn't, then they will write another book of the Bible.  It will be right after the book of Job.  It will be called, "Job II, the Modern Day Sequel."  :)  Just kidding God!

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Jeremiah 29:10-12