My Week, In Short.

in the last few days, I've:

-decorated for and worked at a leader's retreat:


-weaned Myer completely.

-successfully entered the world of Preschool.

-experienced the horror of baby throw up landing square inside my mouth. (LOTS of it.)

-led worship for a room full of amazing children.

-discovered that my 7 month old weighs 20 lbs, and my 4 year old weighs 33 lbs. (haha.)

-heard my voice on an incredible new worship album. (by brad kilman!) (squee!)

-enjoyed air that was cool and smelled like Fall.

-helped complete Ezra's first ever homework assignment:


-prayed and felt the holy spirit so strongly that i couldn't stop shaking.

-sold something on eBay

-bought something on eBay:


-wished my parent's a happy 40TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY. woowoo!

-been reminded that my husband oozes talent and needs to record an album. NOW.

-been inspired by these pretty girls:


-felt more confident than i have in years. maybe ever.

-bit my fingernails to the nubs watching this fire creep closer and closer to my parent's new house:


(it is 0% contained and MUCH closer now as i write.)

-kind of forgotten about my blog.

If you Text and Drive, You are an Idiot.

I watched a video last night that has sent me into some sort of spiral that I am trying to fight my way back out of.

It was an extremely graphic and realistic reenactment of a car crash... one that was caused by someone TEXTING WHILE DRIVING. After I watched it, I could not stop sobbing. I wanted to scream and smash things.

I have some things to say about it, because I just need to. I feel like I might explode or cave-in if I don't.

This video is not something everyone should see. (Myself included.) I did not need to see this video. Because I am not stupid enough to text (or give any distractions my attention) while I am driving. I refuse to even glance down at my radio to change the station while I'm driving. Because I am smart enough to grasp what could happen in that brief moment... I understand that I could harm someone or kill someone by doing that. So I don't do it.

But, if you are dumb enough to text while behind the wheel of your car, you need to watch this video, because obviously nothing else is going to REALLY get the point across that you are taking your own life in your hands while doing that, yes, but also, you are gathering up the lives of my child and my baby and my husband and myself in those same hands and playing Russian Roulette with them.

I'm just going to say it: If you text while you drive, or allow other distractions to pull your attention away from the road, I have a hard time respecting you as a person. I always have felt this way. But this video has compelled me to say something about it.

I am not naturally an anxious person. I don't typically live in fear over my safety or the safety of my loved ones. I believe God is in control of our lives, and He is good, so I just don't spend much of my time worrying about what 'could be'. But after watching that video last night, I have been battling against some major anxiety. In the middle of the night last night, I was sitting in bed, unable to turn the video off in my head... the sights and sounds... and I was praying ferociously that God would take it away so I could rest... but it just wouldn't stop so I gave up praying and picked up my book to fill my mind with something else. I finally fell asleep, but this morning I found myself feeling physically sick at the thought of loading my kids up in the car and driving them to Ezra's school.

I hate that I am allowing this to have so much power over me. But I also know that it is such an important message... and the graphic delivery of that message may not have been necessary for someone like me to grasp the implications of the responsibility I have every time I drive my car, but I think it is necessary for some. Those who have been told that they are endangering themselves and others, but continue in their behavior. The stupid ones.

I seriously think I am having some post traumatic stress over here. So, heed the warning: please don't go hunt down this video if you are at all sensitive and don't need to be told to pay attention while you are driving.

For those of you who do allow distractions when you are driving... search YouTube for "Texting Crash PSA" or something like that. PLEASE.

Watch so that maybe you can finally GET IT.

Wonderfully Made.

I have felt so many things coming against me lately... trying to discourage me and shrink me and stuff me back down into myself. All of this just after I have been discovering who I really am... a radiant lover of life who does not have to be afraid of what people think of her, ever.

It really is so obvious what is happening, isn't it? I have been making big steps forward in the area of confidence, and something out there is trying to swat me back down into my 'proper place' again.

In the past few weeks I have been realizing how much power I've given the Fear Of Failure in my life. I have realized that I've been actively choosing not to take steps towards my dreams simply because I might falter or fall flat on my face. I've been in bondage to Perfectionism... refusing to do ANYTHING unless I was 100% sure that I was going to do it flawlessly and that no one could disagree with me or find fault with me in any way.

If you've lived that way, you know that you can acquire all the admiration and praise you'll ever want to hear...

But it will never satisfy.

I've been SO afraid of plain ol' humiliation or people realizing that I really am nothing more than a goofy messer-upper who never quite grew into her arms that I have ceased living! I have retired into the depths of my home and forgotten the almost sensual pleasure of throwing caution to the wind and RISKING my shiny exterior to the bruises and scuffs and bumps that come with a life lived raw and out in the open under the stars- a life thrown into the light and, therefore, subject to the blinking scrutiny of every other person around.

I am not afraid of your scrutiny! I am not afraid of your judgement! I never will be again. If something about me upsets you, well, that's an itch you're going to have to scratch. I simply can't live in the shadow of people's feelings about me anymore. It's cold there. I need to warm my bones in the sun of honesty and openness again.

I KNOW that I am a total goof ball who doesn't know her left from right most of the time. I KNOW that I give too much of myself sometimes and then not nearly enough at other times. I KNOW that you don't like my hair. Or my clothes. I KNOW that I am about as graceful as a wombat in quicksand.

Your pointing it out doesn't hurt me. It's true! I'm a flop. I'm bound to roll down a hill somewhere soon and get grass stuck in my hair and lose a shoe. It's inevitable that I will say something completely dumb and then promptly turn bright red and begin spitting out sentence fragments at your face. And it's simply not a question of IF but WHEN I will next ask you where we've met before... even though we were college roomates. (TRUE STORY.)

I am not perfect, praise the LORD.

I will forever continue to live candidly, in hopes that someone out there can relate with complete and utter imperfection. I can't hide myself or cower or bend before other people's opinions any longer. I'm just not that flexible, these days.

I like who I am, and I like who God made me. I wish more of us could say that in all confidence and not feel any shame or fear of backlash about it. I think the church has told people over the centuries that they should hate themselves and their bodies, but I really don't think that's God's heart for His people. I think He likes it when we realize the treasure of our own selves.

I once lived for the esteem and affirmation of people I looked up to very much. They were GREAT people, but their sway over me nearly snuffed the real me out. It was a scary place to be, because I suddenly had no center when everything went topsy-turvy. I was trying to be a replica, to fit into a mold they held out to me, and it did harm to me that I am only now untangling.

My compass was off. Now, His voice is the only one I will trust when it comes to my identity. No one else can tell me who I should be, what my life should look like, what my body should look like, or how I should spend my precious days and hours here on this earth. Only He has access to those things.

GOD made me who I am, so to mute any part of me out of the fear of man is a slap to His face that I am no longer okay administering.

By learning to love ME, I am ultimately learning to love HIM. There's just no room for anyone else in that equation.

"I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." Ps.139:13-15

vintage dress.

My first vintage eBay listing in a quajillion years. check it!

The Incredible Adventures of Myer Elliot, Month Seven!

My life, as I knew it, is so very much OVER.

Myer is crawling around so quickly I can barely keep up with him. No... really. Like, I set him down, look away for 30 seconds to tend to my other child, and then CAN'T FIND THE BABY. Because he's halfway across the house.

And he loves WIRES more than anything else in the world. (WHY, Lord?)

On top of this, he has started pulling himself up to a stand on every single thing he can grab onto in my house. But his little chicken legs aren't nearly strong enough to support this act, so he is constantly toppling over and smacking himself on various objects. Who's daredevil baby is this??

He has sprouted three teeth in the last two weeks, and there are some more just about to break through. (That's a total of 6, now, all the way out.) He is not sleeping well because of it, and nothing seems to help him with the pain of it all.



He has also started biting me really hard whenever I try to nurse him. hahahhahahahha*weepy hyperventilation*. Ezra never really did this, so I am (once again) at a total loss of what to do. Feeding my baby has become, like, the most stressful thing EVER. It's like sticking my hand in a pool of sharks and just hoping for the best! (Oh, and also, did I mention? I have a raw T-Bone steak in my hand. And the sharks haven't eaten in four days.)

I am TIRED. And exhausted. And sore. Yet, somehow... very much aware of how SHORT this tumultuous time is in the grand scheme of things.

our HOT zoo day with Harmony!

So, there's that, I suppose.

Today was rough, though. I let it all get to me. I was up all night and woke up suuuuper early with Myer and had a really bad attitude that I just couldn't snap out of all day. (One of those days where you keep looking at the clock and CRYING because you swear it is not. moving. at all.)

There are still SEVEN days left until Ezra starts school again.

Right now, that seems like seven mini interminable lifetimes away.

Send in the clowns!!




Yes, my life as I knew it really is over.

Thank Goodness!

Now? It really is so much better.

Harmony.

Joel, Harmony, Me, and Chris. California represent!

My dearest Harmony has come and gone, and we miss her and her little punkin' Sam terribly around these parts.

She was a total trooper: putting up with ridiculous heat, surviving oklahoma thunderstorms, and lightening my hair for me- a feat that took ALL day... one whole day of her vacation time! Spent WORKING! On ME!



She's a saint.

The boys got along famously:




They played with robot bear and then promptly blogged about the experience.

(PS. Myer weighs MORE than Sam and is 4 months younger. TANK.)

I wish we lived in the same state again. I really do. Harmony is one in a million, and I am SO glad to know her. If you know her personally too, you will understand exactly what I mean.

We love you, darling Harmony! Thank you for visiting us Okies! Y'all come back now, y'hear?

:)

i love us.

we are a happy bunch.


also...
my friend harmony and her sweet boy are coming the day after tomorrow to visit me.
i'm so excited i can hardly wait.


harmony was my maid of honor.
the girl who was there through the roughest times of my life.
she was velcroed to my side in a kind of friendship i had never known before...
she was faithful to me,
and i haven't been able to see her in sooo long!



the days are c r a w l i n g by until she lands here in okc.

hurry, harm! hurrrrrrry!
(milk milk!)

:)

Reflections.

Myer fell asleep at 5:00 tonight and shows no signs of waking. Ezra passed out on the couch at 6:30, and is now sleeping soundly in his bed. Chris is working late tonight. The house is mine, the house is quiet, and I am feeling like it is no coincidence. I feel like it is all carefully orchestrated so that I can sit and be still and hear God speak this to my tired heart:

"Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness
and who seek the Lord:

Look to the rock
from which you were cut
and to the quarry from which
you were hewn;

look to Abraham, your father,
and to Sarah, who gave you birth.
When I called him, he was but one,
and I blessed him and made him many.

The Lord will surely comfort zion
and will look with compassion on all her ruins;
He will make her deserts like Eden,
her wastelands like the garden of the Lord.

Joy and gladness will be found in her,
thanksgiving and the sound of singing."

isaiah 51

Passages like this cause me to feel like I'm valued, protected, and sought after.

And it is so good to be reminded of my worth. To look up at the rock from which I was cut... To know the strength of my source! The power of who I am, right now this very moment.

I can't stand another minute of actually being a strong boulder, yet acting like (and believing I am) nothing more than a dirt clod.

Doesn't it feel that way? Like we're a world full of dirt clods- crumbling under the slightest pressure and unable to bear up under the slightest weight? What has brought us to this place?

LOOK UP to the ROCK from which you were cut.

Start acting like a thing of solidarity, of substance. Stop acting like a congealed mass who is at the mercy of every storm and gust of wind!

Remember who you are.

You are the daughter of a Nation-Builder. The Rock of all Ages. The Ancient of Days. You don't need to fear what anyone thinks of you, or any threat that can be launched against you. Where are the risk takers? The stand makers? The Ones who will not be washed away?

Step into your rightful skin! Lift your chin and wear joy and gladness like a form-fitting gown... like it is tailored for you and suits you. Adorn yourself with humble authority that comes from knowing the truth. Live with squared shoulders and eyes that seek justice.

Know your worth and defend it.

We need more sure-footed women in this world. Just as the men are being called out and exhorted to lead, we women need to be called out and exhorted to dignity and strength of character. Women who refuse to alter themselves at every whim and wish of those around them... at every latest fad or magazine article or fear-mongering ploy.

If we waste our lives chasing after the things the world says we must be or have or look like, we will find ourselves at the end... bitter and empty-handed, standing in a desert that could have been a garden of life.

photo here.