HIS FINEST WHISPERS

(If you are here, the very first thing I want you to read is this: Writing about a divorce can be sticky. I would never want to hurt B in any way. So, please know this post is about the divorce, not about B.)     Rejection.   In the past, I’d had friends hurt my feelings. I was dumped in college. There were jobs I wasn’t offered. There were times I wasn’t invited. But that was pretty much it. The rejection I had felt in my life was, what I would consider, typical.   When I found out B had filed for divorce, I was devastated. Normal, right? I think so. I was intensely sad and cried every day. This too, did not surprise me. In fact, during those first few months, I didn’t fight it. When the sobbing began, I would stop what I was doing so I could heave it out until that episode was over. I also expected the standard emotions that sadness brings with it; disappointment, depression, grief. I wept through each of these and these sorrowful emotions became incr...

I was still living in the home that once held our family of five.  Rooms were now completely empty, the living room bare and our bedroom was...well...void.  B and his kids had left. I would collapse at the smallest emotional trigger, a "train-wreck" as some people commonly refer to it. I shed tears daily, sometimes hourly. The failure of my marriage felt catastrophic.  Spiritual questions loomed in my mind. Could I hear the Lord? Where was he in all of this? Wasn't he here...somewhere? It didn't feel like it. And if he was, I certainly couldn't hear him. I'd been taking steps one-at-a-time for a couple months, but on one particular day, I was told I had to find a new place to live too. I was crushed. Taking the first steps were hard, but having to leave our home, this home we'd bought together, lived in together, made memories in together...the permanence of this step was overwhelming.  I could barely think straight.  In fact, all I really knew was that I ...

“Eric held him down until the police could get the gun out of his hand.” My friend, Beth, told me this story about her husband, a firefighter who helped wrestle a person to the ground during an emergency call yesterday.    This troubled man reached and successfully grabbed an officer’s gun from her belt, but was immediately subdued when four people, including Eric, pounced upon him. They restrained him until they had retrieved the gun and could carefully stand up again.    The culprit was disarmed.   Everyone was safe.   I love a story of valor.   Just a day before, I’d been reading through Colossians and came to chapter 2, verse 15, “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, triumphing over them…”   My eyes veered back to “disarmed.” The Holy Spirit seemed to be highlighting that word in my heart, giving it an intense weight. I studied it. Originating in the late 14th century, it meant to “deprive of power to injure or te...

  Little miss walked into the kitchen and hiked herself up on her usual stool at the bar as I was fixing myself a grilled cheese lunch.   “Hey!”   “Well, hello little miss.”   “I’ve been wanting to tell you something.”   “And what’s that?”   I continued to put the butter on each side of my bread pieces as she was talking.   “A couple of weeks ago, on August ninth, I was upstairs in my room at my mom’s house.”   “Yes.”   “And I was looking at my laptop, all by myself.”   At this point, I heard her become a bit nervous. I put my buttering knife down for a minute to look at her. I wasn't sure if a confession or an announcement was on the horizon.   “Yes?”   “Well, while I was sitting there, I heard God speak to me.”   My demeanor changed to a cautious excitement.   “You did?”   “Yes.”   “And then what happened?”   “Well, it w...

As a celebratory blog about our first year of marriage, I thought I might write about making it through the “bumps in the road”, but no, I've already written about a few of those. Clearly, we've had them.  Maybe I'd write about what it's been like getting married later in life? Maybe just about love? Maybe about all the things I've learned? Nah. I decided on quotes. Yes, quotes, from our home, to sum up our first year of marriage. These are actual, quick, conversations that have taken place between B and me. And they've all brought laughter, a lot of laughter. I think they sum up our first year better than any great story. I have chosen six, not in any particular order.    Me: I saw on this documentary that this girl took six days of silence and it changed her life. B: Me: I think I’m going to do that. B: Did you want to start tonight? *** B: My dream job is in Chicago. Me: I’m not mov...

I don’t compete. Not really anyway. I mean…If I’m playing Catch Phrase or Heads Up, ( or maybe basketball with a five year old ), I will totally get into the game. I can yell and scream and cheer with the best of them. But I don’t really care if I lose. Maybe that is more what I mean. “I’m not competitive” = “I don’t care if I lose.” Don’t get me wrong, during the game, I want to win. I think everyone does. But if I don’t win, I don’t lose any sleep. Now I’m married to a man who has an ex-wife. At first glance, I would tell you that I feel no need to compete with her. I have never needed to feel “prettier” than her.   She has seen me in comfy pants, hair up, and no make up. She’s seen me in torn workout clothes and I don’t wear Lulu Lemon. One time I opened the front door panting and she could see lines of sweat dribbling down my forehead. I never gave it a second thought. I’ve never felt the twinge of financial jealousy. She work...

This summer we took all three kids to VBS at our new church here in the Woodlands. I was there with them each day because I was helping in the 4 th grade Bible study room.   Each morning, all ages of the VBS kids would meet in the sanctuary and the teachers would head up to a 9:00 meeting/prayer time. Well, on Wednesday morning, I took them into the sanctuary like normal and then completely forgot about my 9:00 meeting. I have no idea why, but that prayer time didn’t even cross my mind.  I ended up staying in the sanctuary, along the wall, to secretly check on how the kids were doing. First let me say that Ethan is our quiet guy. He is on the shyer side and while he feels emotions very deeply, he doesn’t show them often. He is reserved in most settings and sometimes it even takes a nudge from us to “get him out there”. As I searched for each of our three kids, I found Ethan first and I couldn’t believe what I saw. I stood there. Watching. Staring. Wait. Was ...

Not having children at weddings is the latest trend. I have received several invitations to weddings (as have several of my friends) in which children have been un-invited to the wedding. I don’t know when or how or why this got started. As a woman who recently got married 7 months ago, I’d like to contribute a different opinion to this new nuptial craze. First let me say, “to each their own”. This post is not for the bride who has already decided not to have children at her wedding. If that is your decision, that is great for you! This post IS for the bride who isn’t quite sure what she wants to do.   Fact: Aside from the groom, kids were the BEST thing at my wedding. Before the Wedding Before the wedding, several little ladies came by to see me in the bride’s room: McKenna, Olivia and Kendall. These three! How I adore them. I’d spent countless hours with these small people (and their moms!) at school which meant I had shared in their lives for months…he...

The family went down to the Mission Centers of Houston this past weekend to serve by organizing the pantry, arranging food and drinks on shelves and taking a tour of the facility so we would know more about their mission. After we finished, we headed over to the gym where we had an impromptu game of basketball. Somehow the teams ended up forming as adults verses the kids. It had only been about 6 minutes into the game when Wes decided to throw the basketball to a small five year old near me. It was sort of slow motion. His throw was a little off, more towards me than the five year old. I’m not normally competitive, but the adults were losing. Here was my chance to even out the game with a fantastic basketball interception. I took one giant leap towards said five year old reaching with my tiny arm as far as it could stretch. I must have lost my balance because the next time I blinked I was airborne just above the ground with this kid, both of our bodies f...

Parenting Wes was a whole lot easier when it was just me. No one was questioning me. No one was making me second guess my discipline. No one was probing me on the why’s of my decisions. I would just make my parental rulings and move on. B was the same way. He wasn’t used to anyone inquiring about his parental verdicts. He wasn’t used to anyone exploring other options to handle discipline encounters. He was used to supervising things all on his own. Now here we are, in this new thing we call a blended family. And we have slowly entered into the phase of disciplining each other’s kids and that is one of the hardest parts of the blend.   Wow. Two imperfect parents, three imperfect kids, all trying to mesh together under two very different parenting styles. First: The conflict. B and I have very different personalities, so the way we discipline our children is very different. I tend to be the person who responds immediately. I’m a t...

Blend – to mix with another substance so that they combine together. To blend isn’t easy. (That might be a massive understatement.)  In fact, B an I are finding the word intentional to be our family word for this first year. We decided early on to be deliberate in our connection with the kids. We are also purposeful and specific in our requests to the Lord as we ask him to fuse us together as one spiritual piece. We put in effort (lots of it and in various forms) in order to encourage the merging of our new family. All of that to say, we work at this “mixing of substances” thing. But that isn’t what this post is about. This post is about the times we don’t plan it or we don’t do anything on purpose. It’s about the nights that we just do our normal, humdrum bedtime routine without any particular intention at all…And then God, just because He is good, decides to show up. Right in our living room. B was in Phoenix for a week in January for work, so I had a...

To the woman who has already had an abortion, There have been a lot of posts swarming around about abortion these last two weeks. You’ve seen both sides: people who are fighting in its favor and those fighting against it. It must be hard for you to read those posts without strong emotions welling up inside. For the majority of the writers and readers, abortion has never been a decision they’ve needed to make or something they felt they needed to do. We all speak about our opinions and convictions and I do believe we all should, as righteousness is a good thing to speak out about…but for right now, let’s lay that all down. I want to talk with you, not about you. We, the writers and readers, have no idea the thoughts and feelings that have permeated your mind these last two weeks. I don’t know what your emotion was when the process of your abortion began. Were you nervous? Were you fearful or maybe petrified? Or perhaps detached? Was anyone with you or were yo...