Brokenness and Humility

Back at the beginning of Sept., I was at a team lead meeting for Passion 2010 and Louie asked us to share any words that were coming to mind about the conference or preparing for the conference or really anything around the conference.  The words for me were brokenness and humility with this verse coming to mind:

All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because,
“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”^{[a] 6}Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. ⁷Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

⁸Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. ⁹Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

¹⁰And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.

Yes, that is what I am praying for the students and volunteers, but I have also been praying that for myself.  Well, in God’s perfect way, He’s been answering that. Really hard to be humbled, but grateful He deems me worthy to draw me closer to Himself.  I know that I am in the process of unpacking all that is in this verse for me, but for now I’m resting against the chest of my Heavenly Father knowing that His grace is enough.

I’ve decided

I always want to give my best to Michael, Luke & Jake.  I want them to always be able to say, “You think my mom’s funny, you should have seen her at home! She was even better there!” “You think my mom loved God and prayed, you should have seen her at home!! She loved God with all of her heart & all of her mind.  You only saw the tip of the iceberg!” “You think my mom loved people. you didn’t see the half of it.  She loved us better than any human ever could.”  I don’t want others getting my best, I want my boys to get my best.

It’s Been 2 Weeks

It’s been 2 weeks since I have been back at work and I have loved every moment of it. I’m kind of wondering if my house will ever be REALLY clean again and if I am doing right by Michael and the boys by going back to work. I really feel like I have always held my job with an open hand, but have continually come back to Michael will like me better when I am working!! I have to be organized, intentional about my time management, better time with God, he eats better & I am much more interesting. However, I have been thinking about that last attribute. I love being interesting, always have. Always have loved knowing random facts, etc. Well, I have also always loved being fun and I realized recently I haven’t been much fun to Michael. I’ve decided I want to take our relationship seriously, but I need to stop taking myself so seriously. Quit worrying about if we are “that couple”, not fun to be around, that we won’t have any friends, that we won’t reflect the love of Christ and all that other stuff. I just need to enjoy the amazing life with my amazing guy & kids that God has blessed me with and trust Him with what others see. Trust Him for friends, trust Him for intimacy, trust Him for our joy and let me just be the fun loving, cute wife that Michael married. So, that’s where I am. Loving being back at work. Loving my boys. Loving my husband and actually learning to love myself.

My 9/11.

Yes, this is a re-post from last year. However, it is still how I feel. We have another new baby in our family, another life that will never know my dad. Mourning the loss of Michael’s dad this week has only helped to remind me how precious life is. How important it is that our loved ones know how much we love them.  The little things really do matter-both doing them & not doing them.

I love you dad.

This is me with my dad, Nick (as we affectionately called him).

He was my dad, my hero, my biggest fan. When he was himself, he was so fun.

Here he is with Rosie, my mom.

He loved to sit out on his patio & when I was visiting, he would let my little Yodi hang out there with him.

I mean, check out how much Luke looks like him. It’s crazy!! Even Michael thought I had doctored a picture of Luke when we saw this picture of Nick. The ears crack me up!

You may be asking what this has to do with 9/11. Bear with me, this is a long post.

9/11 means something to every single one of us. All day,I’ve been reading and hearing about people’s recounting of that day-where they were, what they were doing, what they were feeling. Up to this time of the night 7 (8 now) years ago, I was tracking with everyone. I was glued to the news, scared, upset, hurting for those families, thankful that all of my family was safe & knew I loved them. However, after multiple tries, it was just starting to concern me that I still hadn’t been able to get either of my parents on the phone. My dad HATED the phone, but between my sister and I, we were calling every 5 minutes-he could have answered one of us. Sheesh! By the time, I went to bed that night, I was concerned, but figured my dad was asleep and mom had gone out with the rest of the teachers to discuss all the parents they had just met at the orientation they had that night. Rosie & Nick were going to hear about this one!!! Turns out, the call I received about 12:30am explained why my dad didn’t pick up.

8 years ago, terrorists ended almost 3,000 people’s lives. They turned families upside down, they destroyed hopes & dreams, daughters wouldn’t be walked down aisles, sons wouldn’t have moms to dance with, grandkids wouldn’t know their grandparents, golden years would not be. They changed this country, NO one would ever be the same. To the people who lost loved ones on that day to the terrorist attacks, I am so sorry. I can’t imagine your pain.

8 years ago, hopelessness & despair ended my dad’s life. He just couldn’t take his own pain anymore & 9/11 or not, he had to end this thing we call life. The pain turned our family upside down, it destroyed hopes & dreams, my brother walked me down the aisle, 5 grandkids (& counting) wouldn’t know their granddad like their parents knew theirs, Rosie is by herself 4 hours from her family. Our family was changed that day, we will never be the same.

Our story is similar to so many, I’m sure. Maybe not the actual event, but life and death happened on 9/11 just like every other day. Babies were born and people died independent of the terrorist attacks on our country. Because of lousy timing, this day just has an added amount of significance for us. Yes, we hurt for the people DIRECTLY affected, but 9/11 will always mean something more for so many families.

All this to say, I miss my dad. Every day of the year, I feel the hole of him being gone. Some days are worse than others, some years are better than others, but I know that is the way it is. God has done AMAZING things through Nick’s death and I have seen first hand how He can make good out of really, really bad. I have chosen to allow one of my greatest pains to be one of my greatest ministries and it has been. I will not let the stigma of suicide win. My dad’s life was worth more than to be whispered about or not acknowledged.

My dad would have LOVED Michael-he watches fishing & nature shows just like Nick did. Michael calls me into “look at that” just like my dad did. He would have loved all the fun projects around our house that he could have done. He would have loved to watch ALL the soccer that is on TV now and would be calling me EVERY 5 minutes to ask if I had “seen that pass.” He would have loved to hear Luke say, “Oh Man!” He would have LOVED to see who his grandkids are becoming & how beautiful all of them are. He would have loved to know his daughter has a fun new car that she is so proud of that she doesn’t even mind Shane’s way home. He would have loved to play golf on his son’s course in the Bahamas and then go fishing. He would have loved that I can cook really yummy things, but especially brownies. He would have loved to see how Franklin, TN is growing and tell Rosie how “all the guys at work” were talking about it. He would have loved that now he could actually sit at the breakfast bar and do his crossword puzzle.

Nick, you were an amazing dad and I am so grateful I got to be your daughter. I hate that you lost your battle, but I am going to continue the fight. Fight for people to see hope, love, and experience the life God has for them. As I told you on the voicemail you never heard, I love you so much.

My baby boy

Hi! Yep, I’m still here.  I’ve been caught up in the throws of feeding, resting, diapers, resting, loving, resting-you get my drift.  We are all having a great time with Jake and I am loving my sweet boy. Here are some cute pics of him:

He is a great baby and I LOVE watching Luke with him.  I was really concerned Luke would not totally like him, especially when Michael or his beloved Tay-Tay held Baby Jake.  However, he is so proud and so sweet and is always wanting to show him off or “pet” him or “tiss” him.  I am truly grateful for the 2 gifts from God that are my sons.  It is a bit hard adjusting to two and some days Michael and I feel like we are just making it.  However, I know we will look back on these times and see they were just a season.  I go back to work in a few days.  YIKES, I have no idea what that will be like, but I am confident it will be a fun learning experience!  Ok, off for another feeding. Did I mention the boy eats??? That may explain the 5 pound gain since birth…

Luke’s Boom Boom Pow

He will beat me for posting this one day.  In the meantime, enjoy!

I love this commercial!

This commercial just makes me smile.  BTW-I did have my 2nd boy, but I am still waiting to post about him.

I love the South, especially in the summer

I love the South.  I was born and raised here in Atlanta and love so much about the history and culture of the South.  I may sound like a Yankee, but I’m a Southerner through and through.  My brother and I still laugh about the hat that I used have, “American by birth, Southern by the grace of God.”  Yep, I was that cool.  

Anywho, one of my favorite things is the incredible fruits and vegetables that are available this time of year.  Both mine and Michael’s family have so many great memories that involved the dinner table.  I still remember helping my grandmother shell butter beans and snap green beans when they came in at the stand down the street. The excitement of when the corn was silver queen and not just white or yellow!  I love hearing the stories that Michael will tell of his grandfather’s garden and all that he and his cousins learned from Paw-Paw.  There is nothing better than fresh butter beans, silver queen corn, tomatoes with homemade ranch dressing, squash, lady peas, okra, vidalia onions, peaches, watermelons, blackberries-you get my drift. So a few weeks ago, Michael and I decided to start a yearly tradition of going berry picking.  We headed south to Adams Farm in Fayetteville to see what magic we could find and oh what magic it was.  Here are Luke and Michael heading to the blueberry bushes:

Luke was quite proud of how he was “heppin fill our buttets.”  It was so cute to hear him down the rows of bushes and the excitement he had to find good berries.

I LOVE blackberries and so Luke was the perfect height to help me pick those.  Especially since I don’t bend over so well these days.

 We also picked raspberries for the first time.  We had no idea what to look for, but we got something right because those things were like eating red sugar cubes-SO GOOD!!  We finished our time picking and finished up in the Farmer’s Market attached to the farm that sells other things they grow.  Here is all our loot:

From this, I froze some blueberries, blackberries, and butter beans.  We had to put the peaches in the brown paper bag to ripen them for the homemade peach ice cream I made.  I fried the corn (still have to work on perfecting that!) to go with our fried chicken & veggie meal. Everything else, we just gorged ourselves on. So yummy!!

All this to say, I am looking forward to this new tradition.  I’m hoping to continue getting better at cooking the vegetables so that I can try to create the memories for my family that Michael and I were so fortunate to have created for us. I look forward to shelling butter beans and lady peas with Luke and Jr. Maybe even snapping and stringing some green beans. I want to actually learn how to fry the corn like Mermer (Michael’s mom) did.  I’m not sure we will ever have a garden like it sounds like Paw-Paw did, but I sure hope Michael gets to teach his boys some of the things he learned from his Paw-Paw.

One Month From Today

One month from today, Jr. Franklin will be here.  Kind of freaks me out because I can’t help but think about what life will be like with 2 procreations running around our house. Will he be like Luke? Will he be as different from Luke as I am from my siblings? Will he be an easy baby like Luke was or will he be the terror everyone has told me he will be? Will he be healthy? Will he be another little Michael clone? Will I freak out when he gets sick the way I do with Luke?  Will I remember what to do with a newborn?  WHAT THE HECK ARE WE GOING TO NAME HIM!?!?!   Will Luke be ok sharing his daddy & Tay-tay with his baby brudder? I’m also a little sad because unless God says otherwise, this will be my last pregnancy.  As much as I hate feeling like a beached whale, I have treasured every  heartburny, cellulitey, alien moving in my belly, can’t bend over, tired, irrational, moment of growing this human.  did i mention heartburney?  All that said, I’m excited to meet my  little man on July 10. Hope I like him!

My Boys

  

These are my boys.  These smiles are what make my day on a daily basis.  Tonight as we were getting Luke ready for bed and he was going through the myriad of things “dat hurt”, I was reminded of how wigged out I get with health things.  I am CONSTANTLY bringing this back to God because I know it does nothing to honor Him, nor can I do a dang thing anyway.  Seriously, He probably giggles at the things I can come up with or is at least impressed with my creativity.  Anyway, I have gotten better over the years, but it really has been a struggle. I mean, when I was 16 I told my mom I thought I was pregnant because I had read in a magazine ALL the potential ways you could get pregnant. When asked if I had ever actually done what it takes to get pregnant and I answered, “no”, I’m sure it took everything in her to not laugh in my face or slap me. So, as I hear my son say everything on his body hurts, I fight the urge to google “toddler ______ pain.”  I have already diagnosed all of us with a myriad of health issues due to my googling problem.  But I have to admit, the thought of missing these smiles scares me.  The only antidote to this is to continue bringing it to the foot of the Cross when I start getting wigged out.  As I heard earlier this year, I’m going to trust more in the one who gives the treasure vs the actual treasure. So, I’m gonna keep trusting my sweet God as I surrender each of my precious boys to Him every moment I start to worry about them or feel the need to google what a bruised arm could mean. In the meantime, I’ll also make sure to keep laughing at this little character.