Uncharted Territory

I grew up around a lot of Christian people for most of my life and I can only name a few handfuls of people that were joyful - out of thousands.

I had heard so much.  I had went to church for so long - for every service.  I didn't miss many- Sunday morning, Sunday night, visitation, Wednesday night, revival - we were always at church.

I continued this into adulthood but then I started going do a different denomination but in all honesty it was a lot the same.  There was a few years when I went to a non denominational church that was actually quite wonderful.  There was some inner turmoil in the church and it ended with the pastor retiring and a new pastor coming in. 

My epiphany came when I sat in Sunday school as a mother and as an adult and the teacher asked what we would do if we only had a week to live.  There, of course, were the standard answers - tell as many people as I could about Jesus.

You know what?  I sat in my chair and my first thought was - "I would stop doing laundry and take my family to the beach."

I didn't think at all about Jesus or about eternity.  I came home and knew I had lost something.  It was a slow epiphany in my case because I kept going through the motions.  I kept reading my Bible daily, doing the accountability thing, going to church but I was pretty much spiritually dead inside because I just didn't believe that what I was taught was it.

I saw such a huge disconnect between what the Bible said and what I saw in churches.  And there was no joy and not a lot of hope.  But condemnation - now that was a plenty.  I was officially over it all.

I had lost my first love as the Bible said.  Manipulation and guilt just stopped working with me.  I could no longer go through the motions because of the guilt I felt.  It wasn't in me.  I did not want to.  I was done.  But I did not know anything else.  How else could one go to God without guilt?  How were you to fill the church pews if not for guilt for not knowing enough and not doing enough?

I didn't know if there was anyone out there that preached the Word but dropped the guilt.  Could there be?  I didn't think so.

So I just kept going to church but I stopped listening when I was there.  Tuning things out or literally walking out to sit in the cafe with my baby.  It is an odd place to be - spiritually desperate and hungry but not knowing what to do about it.


Christians are failing.  To preach the gospel, to love people, to show grace.  I feel like I am in a very odd place because I still 100% believe in Jesus.  I still believe what He says is true.  But I didn't believe in church anymore and I had a hard time going.  Its hard to say that because it was all I ever knew.

But I found that broken people didn't really belong in church.  You can't be broken and let people know about it.  Because if you do you aren't really having faith.  You aren't really changed. 

I finally found a church that fit what I needed.  I call it the soul healing church.   And I fear if we have to move or it disbands that I will stop going to church.

I love the Lord.  I do.  I know the Bible well having studied it all my life and memorizing many verses and chapters.  But legalism scares me.  It makes me run away.  It gives me hives - seriously.  I can't handle it.

So here I am forging ahead despite my fear and despite going into uncharted territory because with grace you don't have the checklist of things I should do or should not do.  With grace you just feel like you are free falling - literally and it is terrifying and wonderful at the same time.

And I'm still on this journey and I'm still trying to figure things out.  In the meantime I pray.  I really pray a lot. 

This was probably the book that gave me the most hope.  It changed my perspective and I love it!  I recommend everyone read it.

One Way Love!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


 

I was 18

It was a warm night in August.  The State Fair was going on in our state.  A couple of friends and I had made plans to go.  I went to another friend's boyfriend's apartment to pick up this certain friend.  When I got there they were drinking.  I didn't really know it at the time but I just knew she decided to stay and didn't want to go with me.

I was mad so I left quickly.  I went to my other friend's house.  I honestly don't remember what we did but I think we did make it to the fair.  I was living at my grandparents at the time.  A back story on this was that my parents were divorced and I went back and forth between their houses while I was growing up.  But after I graduated my mom and stepdad decided that they wanted to move out of state so I just decided to live with my grandparents.  They lived in a huge house and I would have my own huge room plus my grandma was a great cook plus I loved them to pieces although I still went to my Dad and T's quite often.

The only problem there was that my grandpa was a huge worry wart.  So I always told them when I would be back.  They expected me to be back at that time.  On this night I told them I would be back at 10pm.  Now, these were the days before there were cell phones.  Yes, I know I'm old.

Back to the story - after my friend and I went out I dropped him off at home.  He lived a good hour from me so I was in a hurry to get back home to be on time for my grandparents.

I remember getting onto the interstate.  I vividly remember that I was actually cold that night so I turned on the heat and I turned on the radio - then blackness.

I woke up in a fog and I looked down at my sheet covered legs.  I heard a child screaming in the next curtain over.  I kept waiting for someone to come to me but I did not see a nurse.  Finally when a nurse passed me I asked her, "Did I hurt that child?"

I honestly had no idea what had happened but figured I had been in a wreck and I was so afraid I had hurt someone.

"No." she said.

"I can wiggle my toes."  I said.

"That's good."  She said.

And then she walked off.

A few minutes later a policeman came in to talk to me.

He asked me so many question but I couldn't remember anything.  He asked me if I had been drinking.

"No." I told him.  Well, they would have to get a blood test anyway.  I'm deathly afraid of needles but at that point I was so groggy I didn't care.

They tied the tourniquet on me and blood starting squirting really high out of my hand.

"She's going to need stitches on her hand."   Yelled whoever it was that was taking my blood.

I watched it all in slow motion still having no idea what had happened to me.

The officer wouldn't tell me anything until he finished asking me questions.  But towards the end he told me something.  He said, "I don't believe this was your fault but I have to write you a ticket but if you show up in court I won't show up."

Therefore I wouldn't have to pay my ticket.  And he was true to his word.

He told me that there were people that helped me out of my car at the scene of my accident.  He said I told them my Dad's name and phone number.  I started to panic because I think I asked them what time it was and it was about 1 a.m. and I knew my grandparents would be sick but I wasn't allowed to use a phone.

They still had to take me for x-rays.

I remember asking the nurse if I could have a mirror to see my face.  She didn't want to give me one.

I pleaded with her and she finally decided to get one and told me that I shouldn't panic or be scared that I had some cuts and bruises and may have been a little swelled but it would all get better.

I had so much glass in my arms and all over me.  I still had no idea exactly what happened but they finally took me to get an x-ray and I had no broken bones.

My dad finally arrived with my stepmom and sister.  I told them they had to call Grandpa and Grandma because they would be so worried.  My dad didn't stop to call them before he left home when the hospital told him to come and get me.

The hospital released me and I vividly remember being in the backseat of our car and telling my dad to take the interstate.  Even then I was a bossy, back seat driver.

I can't remember if we knew what had happened that night or not or if we didn't know the whole story until we received the police report.

I went to sleep that night and woke up the next morning and I was laying in my bed with little pieces of glass everywhere.  I took a bath to soak my arms and legs so we could try to get more of the glass out.  I still can't understand why the hospital wouldn't get the glass out.

My aunt came over after church and she started crying when she saw my face.  To be honest it did look like I got beat up but I didn't think it was that bad.  My mom was freaking out because she was so far away.

We still hadn't seen the car at this time and my Dad and Grandpa went to get my belongings from it a day or two later.

When they went to the junkyard this is what they found:

See the corner of the hood of the car?  That is where my head was suppose to be.

Here is a close up of the steering wheel and again - where I was sitting.

See this side of the car - not too bad.

Another look

We finally found out that either my air bag had accidentally deployed or I had fallen asleep (something I never did nor have I done since).  This made me hit the guard rail on the interstate and spun me around in the wrong direction into oncoming traffic.  I was then run over by the trailer of a semi.

In the police report the semi thought he had hit a raccoon or something small - yep, Geo Storms are pretty small.

Basically what they surmised is that I was wearing my seat belt but I must have been knocked sideways into the passenger seat or else I would not have a head right now.

There were a few witnesses that stopped to help.  They said that I climbed out of the passenger seat of the car myself and  they quickly stopped me and had me lay down.

Here is another "God" part of the story.  When my Dad went to get my things from the car he brought back a blanket that I had never seen before.

When I was at my Dad's a few days later I got a call from a lady.  This is really incredible.  She said she had been behind me and saw it all happen.  She and her husband stopped to help me and brought me that blanket to put under my head.  She heard me say my Dad's name.  She happened to live one town over and she called all of the people in the phone book with my Dad's name until she found me.

She wanted to know if I was okay because they obviously wouldn't tell her anything.

Isn't that amazing?  I told her I had her blanket and thanked her so much.  I asked her if she wanted her blanket back but she said no. 

Honestly, being the dumb teenager that I was and thinking that I was invincible - this didn't mean a lot to me then.  My mom kept these pictures up for me to see at her house and always pointed to them and told me how God had saved me and reminded me not to forget it.

I mean when you look at the car - yes, it looks like a person shouldn't have survived that - especially the driver.

And I still have no idea why it happened.  I often forget that it did except that I still have some scars on my arms and legs to remind me.

It was also the first car that I bought myself (my dad co-signed) - and I had only had it for a month - so it was paid off in a month, ha! 

Why did I get to walk away from that accident when so many don't?  I don't know why.  I don't know why it happened in the first place and I don't need to know.

I just need to remember it - and be thankful for every.single.day.



 

Lessons from the farm

If you read my blog you may see that I kind of like to play in the dirt and I like to can and do various things like that.  And it is true - I like to do those things now.  But there was a time when I did not want anything to do with gardening or a farm house or land.  You may have read my Lessons of the Shoe post.  Well, that incident happened on a farm.

Let me back up.  Before my husband and I were married we were trying to decide where we would live.  I always assumed it would be a nice little cozy, new apartment where all you had to do was keep it clean and take the trash to the dumpster.  Those were your only responsibilities.  You had heat and air conditioning and of course cable.  It would almost be like staying in a hotel only we would live there.  Then something happened.  It was New Year's Eve - six months before we were to get married.  My husband's grandmother had fallen and was hurt.  She had to be hospitalized and then her children had to decide what to do with her because she was getting a little senile and she had been living alone at her farm house.

The kids decided to put her in a permanent care facility.  Now, the farmhouse was empty, but they did not want to sell it so they came to us with an idea.  They asked us if we wanted to rent it for a very cheap rate.  I could tell my husband was beyond thrilled about this idea after all this farm held very good memories for him and it was cheap rent.  I wasn't so sure because I had envisioned living in my cute little apartment close to the grocery store and close to movies and shopping.

The farmhouse was 20 minutes from town and there was no air conditioning and no cable and well, I had not lived without cable since I was 7 and I had never lived without air conditioning, yep I was a little spoiled.  I could see how excited my husband was and we were pretty poor when we first were married so the cheap rent won us over.  I finally agreed to it.  I mean, what could go wrong?  I was going to be married to the cutest boy I knew and I would have my own little house complete with a root cellar, a barn, a shop and an old chicken house (today I would be in heaven!).

Well, we were married in July and that was a hot, hot summer so after our short honeymoon we moved into the farmhouse.  Let me just be clear, I honestly had no idea what I was doing.  I did not know how to care for a home let alone a husband.  It kills me now how we spend so much time and money planning our wedding day (one day!) and very little time learning homemaking skills to live out a good marriage which will last a lifetime.

So being the spoiled girl I was, I was not prepared to cook meals in a very hot kitchen and I was not prepared to watch 3 channels on an old TV that came in a little fuzzy.  And I was not prepared to not be able to run to town anytime I wanted to.  I was not prepared for the amount of spiders and bugs that called our house their home.  I was not a fan of bugs of any sort.  I also was not prepared for the amount of mice we would have when the fields around us were plowed.  I was not prepared for the small tree frogs that seem to come into the house at the most unexpected times - like when I was using the bathroom or when I was closing the bedroom window for the night.

I mean I guess I expected some spiders but I really did not expect to be living with frogs.  Ants were also abundant in my kitchen.  They just wanted to be everywhere.  And the quietness at night - chirp, chirp, chirp - you could hear crickets from miles around and you could hear them in our bedroom because they were there too.   Can you tell I never really lived in the country?

During this time my husband was in the National Guard so he was gone at least one weekend a month and I really didn't have any married friends at the time.  All of my girlfriends were mostly single and it was hard to mesh those two worlds.

So to say I was lonely would have been the understatement of the year.  I was lonely and hot and cranky and I hadn't been able to watch cable news (I was addicted to Fox news).  I had no idea how to make a menu, budget my grocery money and I barely knew how to cook.  All of my family were 500 miles away and I didn't want to let them know how badly I was doing at this whole marriage/wife thing.  My in-laws were very sweet and helpful but I did not feel like I could tell them anything because it really seemed ungrateful of me.  I needed help but I didn't even know what help I needed or where to start.

It was a very rough summer and it wasn't going to get better, at least not until it got worse.

More to come  . . .

Memorial Day Thoughts, My Story - Part II

Part I

I barely remember the actual day he left.  I knew he had a layover in Rome (or Ireland) but from there I did not know where he would go.  I went to work and at that time they let us have live feed from news stations on our computers because the war was going on.  It probably wasn’t the best for me because I watched it constantly wondering what was going on and where he was.

It wasn’t long until I found out.  He was stationed at a “base” in Kuwait not far from the border of Iraq.  According to him the base consisted of tents and Port-o-potties.  The heat was awful and the sand was everywhere.  He also was able to buy a cell phone from the trunk of a man’s car that he shared with a couple of other guys.  It actually worked in Kuwait and he was able to call me.  The biggest problem was the time difference.There were so many times that he could call me but it would be very early where I was.   

I would send him care packages.  He would call and ask me to send medicines and things.  I always had to carefully list everything I was sending and give a value. 

I tried to stay busy so I wouldn’t think about him, but it didn’t always work.  I kept hearing that they were going to keep the Guard troops longer and that would make me more depressed.  I really should not have watched the news that much. 

These are a few excerpts from my diary at the time:

“Tomorrow is September 11^th and that day has impacted my life in huge ways, but at least my husband is still alive.  I found out today that it may be until April when he gets back.  I can’t fathom that right now.  I can’t let that enter my thoughts.”

“Tomorrow is Ryan’s birthday.  Yet another event that we have to celebrate apart.  I miss him daily, sometimes hourly.”

“I feel bad.  You called at 6:30am and I was sleepy and I asked if you could call me back.  You said you would, but you didn’t.  I miss you so much.  I am just having to go on without you everyday.  It is not right, but there is nothing we can do about it.  I didn’t go to church today.  I can’t find one that I like.  I need to look harder.”

“Another Monday has passed.  Yet another week without my husband.  You went to Afghanistan last week – that is so amazing.  I still wonder if I will ever get to see you.  I hope I will.”

 “You didn’t call today, but I know you are tired.  I never thought it would be this long until I get to see you.  I miss you so much.  I really try to keep myself overly busy so I don’t dwell on it.”

“I pray he’s here for Christmas.  But I am just thankful he’s alive.  15 men died in Iraq today so I am grateful.”

I had forgotten how lonely I was at that time.  When we first got married, Ryan was trying to finish college and I was working full time.  He didn’t have time to decide what career he was going to pursue.  He did not want to start a family because the future was so uncertain and we barely saw each other anyway.  Our lives were in limbo and I hated it.  I was not very good at waiting.  God definitely used these situations to teach me that my plans aren’t always the best plans.  I had to depend on the Lord so many times.

I would cry out to Him so often and ask what was happening.  I had just wanted to get married and start a family but that was not to be.  Not for many years. 

I got so desperate for my husband to come home that I started writing letters to Congressmen.  I wrote a letter to my Congressman from Missouri but I heard nothing back (thanks a lot Roy Blunt).  So I wrote a letter to my new Congresswoman in Indiana, Julia Carson (she was at the time anyway).  I told them my situation and asked questions.  I did research and found out that technically my husband’s unit shouldn’t have been deployable because they weren’t allowed to be called up twice in an 18  month period (ha, that has since been disbanded). 

Guess what?  A woman from Julia Carson’s office called me back.  She said they would do an inquiry for me, but she warned me that it might make it very hard on my husband overseas because they really would investigate it and people may give him a hard time.

Great, so there was my obvious choice.  Even though I disagreed with Miss Carson’s politics, I ALWAYS respected her and her office for genuinely caring about my situation and following up on it.  It was amazing even though I chose not to go ahead.

I would just have to wait and see what would happen.  But good things were happening to Ryan at this time.  Their unit was moved from Kuwait to Qatar and life was so much different in Qatar.  Qatar is a rich country.  They have shopping malls and Applebee’s (ha), but Ryan said the chicken there did not taste like the chicken here.

He was able to live a little more comfortably there than he did in Kuwait.  He was still a world away from me but at least I knew he was a little farther away from the war.  Also at this time, he took on an additional role.  He was basically like the Secret Service for the military.  Whenever a General would come into town, Ryan would escort him around and be his personal guard in a way.  He even flew with one of them to Afghanistan for a day. 

So this also made me a little nervous, but there again, I had to put my faith and trust in God . 

I was feeling better, but I was still waiting and wondering, when would he come home and how long would he get to stay this time? 

To be continued . . .

Memorial Day Thoughts . . . My story

I sometimes don't think about Memorial Day as  I should.  The sacrifice of the men and women who fight and the families they leave behind is HUGE.  It is an amazing thing for these men to serve their country.  My husband was one of these men.  He never actually had to be in battle, but he did have to go to the Persian Gulf.  He spent several months in there about 3 years after we were married.  It was probably the loneliest time in my life.  For years we were a couple and then I was alone and I did not feel like I could really talk to anyone because not that many people could relate to having their husband gone for long periods of time.

We were separated a lot those first 4 years of marriage.  My husband was in the National Guard and he was called up the first time right after 9/11.  We did not know what he would do or where he would go.  I vividly remember coming home from getting a lot of groceries.  He met me outside of our house with a sad look on his face.  I was carrying in a bag of groceries and he told me he had gotten a call.  He would have to meet at the armory tomorrow and he didn't know where he was going.  At that time he was an MP (Military Police) and they were badly needed so he could have went anywhere.  All I could say was, "But I got all of these groceries.  Who is going to eat them?"  Fortunately, we soon found out he would be stationed state-side.  He was going to be at a military base about an hour and a half from where we lived.  This was probably the best case scenario at the time.

I really couldn't complain, but I wanted to.  I was a newlywed of just a year, living on his grandmother's farm at least 20 minutes from town.  Let me tell you I was not at all knowledgeable about how to take care of an old farm house, a garden or how to mow several acres.  The BEST thing about that was that my husband's aunt and uncle lived right by us so Uncle Jerry saved my day more times than I care to remember.

I ruined the potatoes and I bent the blade of the riding mower.  After the riding mower incident, Uncle Jerry put up bright orange flags at every stump in the yard so that I would not run over them.  I love that man.  I didn't cause too much damage beyond that but Jerry helped me out so many times!

My husband was living in barracks at the base and working crazy shifts.  He got to come home 2 days a week on most weeks so it was good to see him even that limited amount of time.  About this time I kind of freaked out about staying by myself at the farm so I begged him to let us move into an apartment close to my work.  My father-in-law had to move us so I know he loved that.  Back then I was not much of a planner or packer so you can only imagine how that move went.  My in-laws were very gracious though because I moved in with them for 3 months until we found an apartment.  It was actually pretty great for me.  I wasn't as lonely.

We plugged away for that year and saved up a bunch of money which was good and finally my husband got released from that deployment but he was in college when he got called up so when he came back he didn't really have a job and couldn't enroll in school because it was mid-semester.  So he worked at his friend's popcorn business and enrolled for the next semester.  He knew the whole time that he would be called up again but he did not tell me about it because he did not want me to worry.  He was pretty sure it would not be state-side the next time.

Well, it was just a couple of months later and I was sitting at work.  My husband was on his way to take a math test.  I got a call at work.  It was him.  He told me the news - he was getting called up again.  It had only been 4 months since his last deployment and I was terrified honestly.  I began crying at work and my friends came in to console  me.  We were pretty sure it would be overseas this time and soon found out that we were right.

Let me tell you that send off ceremony was so hard.  I just could not think about not seeing him again for so long.  I did not really sign up to be an Army wife so I was a reluctant one at best.  I should have depended on God more and I should have worried less and I should have been more supportive.  The send off was a blur.  Fortunately though he was going to Ft. Wood again and would be there for about 2 weeks before he left so I was still able to see him.

I made some bad decisions during this time.  One of which was to move back to my hometown which was about 500 miles from a city that my husband had lived in his entire life.  I was lonely and selfish and very afraid of being away from my family AND my husband.  Also during this time, my grandma was VERY sick and in the hospital.  I drove up there to see her and on my way back stopped to see my husband.  My grandpa and dad came down to move me and as we were moving our things back up - the day I was moving back, my grandma died.

If that wasn't hard enough I had to make the difficult decision to not go to her funeral so I could see my husband one last time before he had to go to his deployment.  I don't remember when we found out he would be SOMEWHERE in the Persian Gulf but we found out pretty soon.  He couldn't tell me where he was going.  It was so HARD.  I just prayed he wouldn't be in Iraq.

To be continued . . .