ForeverLOVEd

The last bits of summer sand have just about all fallen off my feet. And as the waves crash to shore and the pencils and pens fill the bins at all the local stores, the new year brings with it the promise of new horizons, new beginnings, and new possibilities.  New adventures meet none in quite the same way as they do for my favorite class of 2018. So as I hug the last young person good bye and leave my words of wisdom in their ears as they exit stage left, I’m full of excitement. Because if I am being truthful, I know that grand life awaits each of them and it’s not because of the grades they will get, or the clubs they will join, or the jobs they will pursue, it’s because of the people they will be. The people that I love get to go BE in the world. They get to be who they are, find out who they are meant to be, and discover that every moment God brings to them is the exact thing they need. The art of being is so profound. Our world tells us that being is not enough. It tells us ...

"Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.” Ludwig van Beethoven  My brother Sean loves music. He has more playlists on Spotify than one can count and can tell you anything you want to know about most musicians from Taylor Swift to Gentle Giant.  He loves music...hears it in a different way, even.  Yet, here in his 28th year, he had never once been to a concert. That was until last week. The free tickets landed in our hands. And quite frankly I was not overly eager to go. Yet, we found ourselves in the seats for The Village People and Cool and the Gang at the OC Fair. Perhaps, this WAS Sean’s lucky year. He will tell you it’s because on the 28th of August he will turn 28 and this year started on the same day of the week as the year he was born. I would say it’s more than that. Sean loved the concert. His heart was beating to the music as he encountered life in a new way. He had always loved music, but this was the first time he got to live it. And he ...

Prosper:  to become strong and flourishing “This meal is life changing”, I said in between bites of my sage corn and the chipotle mayo covering my portobello mushroom burger. And I meant it. It was a mouth watering goodness. Every bite had it’s own unique explosion of flavors that left my tastebuds dancing. My aunt always says you can tell a good meal but the number of colors it leaves on your plate. This meal had every color. But more than that, I think what made it so satisfying was the love that sat around the table. The wine was poured, the laughs were genuine, and the hearts each beated into a community of people who cared deeply about one another. That meal was life changing for two reasons; the food was dang good, and the experience was even better. I think we so often want things to be instant. Even in my meals, I fly by the quicker the better motto.   If I can have it ready in minutes great, seconds, even better. But the meal that night, we prepped for over an ho...

Wisdom:  The   ability   to   discern   or   judge   what   is   true,   right,   or   lasting;   insight. My hidden talents are few and far between.  But, if you know me well enough, you  know I am gifted sleeper. I had no intention of watching the Royal Wedding.  I knew full well that it would be happening when I was swept away and sleeping like a princess, and no amount of fluff would convince me to compromise that.  At 3:43 am, however, I awoke from a dead sleep.  Shocked, and barely able to open my eyes, I looked to see it was still dark. As I brought myself to some sort of consciousness, I could not believe my circumstances.  In the middle of the night, I was awake.  This never happens.  Shuffling in the dark, I turned on the TV. I just wanted to see where the festivities were before my snoring was back in full swing.  Plus, it would be fun to see her dress.  I lau...

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all. -Oscar Wilde Legend says a giant named Fin built the causeway.  The beauty of it’s creation is stunning. Up and over steps and surrounded by hills, it all kind of takes your breath away. It is a love story left by a creator that you cannot help but be swept into. It is my trip to Ireland. A majestic moment of following in giant footsteps, taking in more than you one’s eyes alone possibly could, and holding on to the collection of postcard like pictures in my mind. I’m more than certain that I’m walking on a path so many carved before me. My grandparents, parents, role models, and friends have all stepped across chasms, I am lucky to leap after.  They have lived in a way I dream to live and done things I merely say a prayer I ever could. They have paved the way for a life of beauty, memorable moments, and breathtaking adventure.  And as I tossed about in the passenger seat up and down the windin...

Survive: continue to live or exist, especially in spite of danger or hardship.   In the middle of an otherwise mundane afternoon of work, their anxious joy jarred me away from my computer.  The mother beamed with a smile and looked to her husband to share this overwhelming good news. I waited eagerly to see how I might be able to help them. I could make out most of the words as they spoke to me while gazing back at each other to confirm that their words made sense.  It was probably obvious I do not speak a Spanish. They stretched beyond their own comfortability to tell me this great news. Their daughter had made First Communion in 2011 and they finally decided it was time to part with her dress.  They came to my office to donate it, in hopes that some other girl may feel the pure excitement and love their daughter did the day she wore it.  The mom lovingly pointed out every detail of the dress as she handed it to me to pass on. She then sent her husband bac...

Persevere:  to  persist  in a state, enterprise, or undertaking in spite of counterinfluences, opposition, or discouragement Walks with my dog are usually squished in between this and that.  Whether the day is rushed or not, I have a constant clock ticking. It’s a clock that says move faster, go quicker, beat the time you had before. I constantly race against myself to get the things I feel I have to do done more efficiently than before.  It’s a fault.  One I cannot seem to break. When the steps were flying and the dog was racing to keep up with my hurry, an older couple staled us. They looked mature in years, but so young in love.  He wore baggy jogging pants and her wrinkled hand grabbed on tightly to his arm. And they walked quite literally as slow as snails. At first I thought to myself, how inconvenient, right in the middle of my gold medal walking performance, a road block basically stopped me in my tracks. But then, I became captivated at th...

Reliant: dependent on someone or something.  There's a couple who comes into church everyday. She holds his hand and he stands tall.  She nudges him when he should be standing up or sitting down. The years they have spent together are written in the space between them. This couple shows me reliance. The man cannot see. The wife guides him along the way. There are moments though, when she forgets to nudge him. Maybe she is caught up in the words God is speaking to her or the list of things she has to do today. Does God reach the man any less if he does not sit or stand when he should? Does the man only hear or feel God when the person he is relying on shows up or comes through?  I want to be more like the man who is gentle with her on the days she guides him, and the days she is too distracted to. Because I believe God comes through for the man on both days. I want to be more like the man who relies on God first and her second. 

Irresistible: too powerful or convincing to be resisted. Every New Years Eve, we pick a word to define the months ahead.  Maybe it's an ambitious word, or a refreshing one. Sometimes it's a word that we hope for more of in the year to come, other times it's what we feel we finally discovered in the year gone by. Whatever it is, whether we have picked it long before the clock strikes midnight, or it's just something we fancy in the moment as we pop the champagne, we write the word on the mirror in the entry way and hope that it becomes our mantra for the next 365 days.  As 2016 came to an end, and 2017 popped on the scene with its gusto, and guts, grace, and gruel, the word I could not shake was irresistible. And maybe if you were in the new year, new you state of mind, you could consider that a resolution of sorts. To create a me that's irresistible could have been my goal for the year. But that's not why the word hung around.  As 2016 came to a close and 20...

Why you with your long brown hair flowing And you with your fresh tattooed skin And you from the Western Virginia That you'll never get to see again As darkness descended the desert And a bad actor starred in his play Why you from Tennessee did life capture And me from Tennessee get away -Eric Church  I had just fallen into that moment, the one between sleep and awake. My head rested heavily on my cool pillow, the ceiling fan swayed in constant motion above me, and a dreamlike sensation mixed with heavy eyes had me off to Neverland. And then, like the cold that filled that eery night, my slumber was erupted with that tiny vibrating of my phone. And in that moment, the world I knew, changed.  I never left my phone on when I slept. I have no idea why or how that night it had been. And twenty minutes later when I sat frozen in my bed, still in shock, and utterly terrified, my mom wondered what I was doing. I replied, "Mom, I'm so scared."  I was paralyzed i...

"Christ does not force our will, He only takes what we give Him. But He does not give Himself entirely until He sees that we yield ourselves entirely to Him." St. Therese of Avila  Well, it's happening. I think these three words to myself multiple times a day. I shake my head in awe, smile slightly, and wonder to myself how, as I make my way through the rush hour traffic running from one place to another. But here it is and here it is working.  This fall has been the most insane, overwhelming, and beautiful journey.  In pursuit of my teaching credential, I am student teaching full time. This is a job I knew I could handle alongside my full time job, when my job was what it had been for three years.  What none of us knew was that our office would be taking on twice as much work, creating a whole new program for a whole new population, and be down a coworker due to a fluke injury. Most days I leave my house at seven in the morning and return around nine in the eve...

Tomorrow will be the first month of my life that I'll start without him. September will come, and Papa won't be here. I won't get to call him and tell him about the new year starting at work, how cute my little kiddos are or what cool class I'm enrolled in for the semester. I won't get to chat with him about the Kansas heat, or his morning mass coffee crew. I won't open a birthday card signed with his sweet message or hear about his travel plans for spring. He will never get to meet the man of my dreams and hug me tight on my wedding day. I'll never get to hear him tell his favorite stories from our adventure together in Europe, or hear his recollection of my favorite songs to sing when I was a kid. September is here and I'm sad because I miss him.  In June, Papa told us his time with us was short. He had been diagnosed with a devastating cancer that was not going to go away. The doctor gave him 1 to 4 months to live. My eyes unleashed tears like a flo...

I have called you by name, you are mine. Isaiah 43:1 I have a minor obsession with names. And by minor, I mean, well major. I have named and renamed my future children hundreds of times.  I pick books by the words on the cover, analyze songs by the title, and literally pick my toenail polish based on the name. Currently I'm rocking the "Two Time Zones" shade of hot pink.  I guess it's no surprise that a lover of words and writing would want to know the name of everything and everyone and  have such a passion for knowing the story behind each name. Because, I think the truth is, we can tell a lot by a name.  This past week I shared some time with my papa in the home he retired in. We reminisced about my childhood, amazing trips, and family functions. We shared laughter, and tears, and went through some of his most treasured possessions. And I won't name them all, but I will admit, the joy I found in his collection of Hummels was discovering the name of each p...

Totus Tuus Have you ever planted a grape vine? Those things are relentless. The one in the backyard was out of control. It was taking over in a major way. And it needed to be stopped.  So genius me, on the sunniest Saturday of the year, got a wild hair and decided to destroy it. Gloves on my hands and clippers out I was in full attack mode. After a few minutes of my solo pursuit, my family started to join and we clipped and pulled, sawed and dug what felt like miles and mounds of that light green vine. It had wrapped itself around every surface. The vine, which felt tougher than string, and quite frankly less forgiving, was tied onto lattice work and other trees. And as we fought to undo it I wondered why anyone would ever, in their right mind, plant a grape vine.  The vine was everywhere, in everything, and it took a serious amount of sweat and elbow grease to detach even the smallest portion of it. Nothing was exempt from its power. Nothing was left from its impact. And ...

"Have no fear of perfection, you’ll never reach it” – Salvador Dali The first time I went, I hated it. For a perfectionist who's greatest fear is rejection, the pressure was too much to bear. My line dancing was not up to par. And the day we had arrived to strut our stuff, we got kicked off the dance floor multiple times. It was the WORST; humiliation at its finest. We were not qualified with our two left feet and here "just for fun" attitude. That was the first time.  When I opened the invite and saw the gathering there at this same place, I cringed. But I would show up because I loved the people, and good country music on a Thursday night. I, however had predetermined that I'd never hit the dance floor! What I have come to know however is that my predetermination is often false.  ••• If you stopped in my office any day this week you might think I am crazy. There are scissors and glue everywhere, a collection of boxes complete enough to reach hoarder status, and...

And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new." Revelation 21:5   It was a rare Friday. Normally, a day off of work, I rolled out of bed motivated to get something done. I grabbed my brother for the adventure and we loaded up the family recycling into both of our cars. As sticky soda dripped from the bags, we piled one on top of the other. Every crevice of both our cars were filled to the brim. And so we sat in the one empty seat we both had still available and drove our way up the hill, I glanced at my clock and thought to myself, well this day is off to a running start.   It did not hit me until I pulled up and saw the other people with their bags. We had four times as many. And maybe it was because we had not been to turn in our collection for over a year, or maybe we were just frivolous with our waste but either way, it made my skin crawl.   I was disgusted. I felt like the scum of the earth as we unloaded bag after bag of empty cans and ...

"I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice."  Abraham Lincoln  I can still hear the crunching of metal as the two cars collided together. It had been years since the day my little yellow car was totaled in an accident that flipped me in circles, had me DUI tested, and ultimately led to my first major purchase as a grown up, my very own car. And as the sun hit my dashboard and the music played over my stereo, a sense of post dramatic stress flooded my mind. I was turning left to get on the freeway and even though there was no way the oncoming traffic would hit me I tensed up and braced myself for what was coming next. Today, it was just a collision in my mind. Like it was the present, I pictured the loss of control, the fear, the sights and smells of that major accident and for a moment I relived it.  I never really realized how much that moment shaped me. I never thought about the humiliation, the built up anxiety, and the lack of confiden...