I Second That Emotion

This is the time of year for reflections. I've been especially reflecting on my life and thinking about some of the things that I've learned this year.  I've learned some very important lessons from my children this year.  We have both a 4 year old and a 12 year old in our home, which essentially means I have two toddlers.  I have two young people in my home that have little control over their own emotions, which is completely developmentally appropriate for each of them, considering their respective ages.  I, on the other hand, have a hard time sometimes controlling my emotions while parenting them, but what's my excuse?

I've especially learned this year that I need to focus more on how I react to my children than on how they react to me or to life. They are learning how to handle "life" by watching me and by following the example I set. How I respond to "life" in front of my kids is what matters.  When my 12 year old loses her cool after I tell her she needs to clean her room,  do I lose my cool? Or should I lead by example,  and calmy explain that her room needs cleaned and follow that with lovingly,  but firmly, explaining the consequences of what will happen if she chooses not to follow the rules?

I make mistakes every day as a parent. Thankfully,  every day I get to wake up and try again to be a better mother than the day before.

It is an honor to parent these two little people.  I hope to send them out into this world as bigger and better contributors to it than I could ever have imagined.

One thing is for sure, my children have been my greatest teachers.  I am beyond blessed to be their momma.

The Human Spirit

I grew up adoring my grandmother.  She taught me some of the most important lessons in life. She taught us that when you go to Dairy Queen, your dessert should be eaten first because it's the best part of the meal.  She taught me that a lady should always wear lipstick.  

She also taught us that we should always give tithes and offerings to the church.  In fact, some of the most important lessons she has taught me has not been by the words that she has said, but through the life she has lead. For instance, I watched my grandmother serve at her church in all sorts of various capacities while I was growing up, and I knew that I wanted to grow up and serve others, just like her. 

My grandmother now has dementia.  She does not know who I am and she doesn't know most of her family members.  She has slowly faded away, both in body and in mind, over the last few years because of this horrible disease of which doctors cannot truly pinpoint what has caused it. 

Even though my grandmother's mind and body are fading away, her soul is not. 

The Bible has many verses that discuss the spirit within us (a.k.a. our souls).  Proverbs 20:17 says: The spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord that sheds light on one's inmost being (NIV)."  Psalm 119:175: "Let my soul live and it shall praise you."  God is telling us that our bodies and souls are two separate beings, and my grandmother is proof of this. 

On Thanksgiving day, my family stood in a circle in order to pray for a blessing over the meal.  After my dad said a simple prayer, my grandmother came right over to him and gave him a big hug. She couldn't speak, as she is unable to speak now, but she was truly so happy about the prayer and this was undeniable to everyone in the room.  I wasn't there to see it, but after hearing about it from my mom and grandpa, I had to share this.  Her soul was touched by the prayer, even though her mind and body could not express her feelings.

3 John 2 says: "Dear friend, I pray that you are in good health, just as your soul prospers." 

It is clear, as my grandmother's life is testimony to, that our bodies may not prosper, but our souls do.

Now, the question is, what will you do to feed your soul?

We must feed our souls by studying God's word daily, by prayer and, most importantly, by sharing God's love with others.  Because my grandmother was faithful in all of these things, her soul will prosper far beyond what her body could ever do.

 

Chicken Magic

When we were growing up we lived in a small suburban town in a regular house.  We did not have any amount of acreage at all, but that did not matter to my mom in terms of turning the backyard into a farm.  We had several chickens and two ducks for a while in our backyard.  I have no idea what the purpose of keeping the ducks was... My guess is that she used their droppings for fertilizer for her huge garden.  Other than that, I have no idea.  As for the chickens, we ate their eggs.  I remember heading out into the backyard to find the brown eggs that they laid.  It was like Easter year-round at our house!  

Don't call PETA and tell on us, but, one of the most amazing tricks that we did with the chickens was "hypnotization".  My brother "hypnotized" the chickens by doing some sort of rubbing on their chests.  The sensation made their bodies freeze (quite likely due to fear).  He could get them to lay on their backs and not move at all.  It was the funniest thing.  I will be honest, I was slightly afraid of those chickens, so most (all) of the tricks were performed by my oldest brother.

The hypnotizing was fun and hilarious, but another great trick was tying up the chickens and forcing them to pull our wagon, like we were on the Oregon Trail.  We used to play Oregon Trail a lot for some reason... I'm guessing we watched and read the Little House on the Prairie just a little too much.  The chickens wouldn't pull the wagon for long, but the fact that my brother could get them tied up for any amount of time was really quite amazing. 

I'm thankful for my fun siblings and for my hippie roots.  I wonder if my siblings and I would be the same creative people we are now if we didn't have some of the activities our parents provided for us in our childhood.  It makes me want to provide more "outside of the box" activities for my own children.  I don't think I'll go as far as to have chickens and ducks in my backyard..... but something cool, that doesn't involve a screen of some sort, nonetheless. 

Violence and God

Today is apparently the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.  It is interesting that I have been thinking this morning about violent acts done against others and why it happens. 

I've thought a lot about and wondered about how it is that human nature can be both so incredibly beautiful and so disgustingly evil and ugly.  God was really not kidding when he decided to give us free will and we humans ran with it.  We ran and many of us never looked back at him. 

I watched the movie 12 Years A Slave this weekend and I wondered while I watched it why God let slavery happen.  I wonder if others thought the same while they watched it.  Why would a loving and merciful God allow such despicable things to happen to others?  It's not that he allowed it.  It's just that he gave us that free will to choose him or to not.  Clearly the slave owners chose the latter.  In fact, if it were not for God and the love and mercy that only exists because of him, this horrible institution would likely still be legal today. 

This makes me think about my own life and my own struggle.  Of course, not very many life experiences can compare to the evilness and horridness of being enslaved, so I'm not saying that my life experience is similar.  I am referring to the fact that human nature and free will or choice is what has caused me to go through what I have. 

We all have choices to make every day.  My father chose to abuse my siblings and I, and his choices changed the course of our lives forever.  Some of the things we went through I will never forget.  Thankfully, my memory has let go of many things.  I wonder what kind of people we would be today if he would have chose differently.  I wonder what our entire family would be like. 

I do know that he made a choice and now I have a choice to decide what to do with my pain.  Do I become depressed and cause misery to myself and others? Or, do I choose to find the good in others and help others that have gone through similar experiences?  I choose the latter.  God did not allow me to go through what I did.  He never intended for me to be hurt.  He loves me with a love that I cannot even comprehend and he saved me from my abuse.  For that, I am eternally grateful and I will not be ashamed to serve him.

In All the Wrong Places

I have made some really dumb choices in my life.  Most of my biggest mistakes have involved my love life.  I once dated this guy named Frank.  Ok, I've never truly dated a guy named "Frank", but for the sake of this life lesson I'm about to share, and for the sake of the real guy's life- to avoid having my biker family members hunt him down after this- I've given him a new name. 

Frank was a charmer at first.  He had a huge smile and he seemed to be very interested in the person that I was.  He was also interested in being a daddy, it seemed.  He was a wild land firefighter (fighting forest fires only) and he seemed to know a lot of people that lived in my hometown.  So, for this single momma, at the time, he seemed like a real catch. 

Pretty soon after starting to date this guy, I realized he had a bit of a lying problem.  He would lie about stupid little things that I couldn't really pin point what exactly the lie was.  I just knew that he had told a lie.  He lied about his family, about money; really about anything he wanted to.  It took me a little while to realize that he was a liar so I gave him a chance at first. However, a real doozy of a lie hit one time that I just could not shake. 

One day I was working hard on a paper at my apartment.  I was a mom, a full time student and I worked full time at the Boys & Girls Club at the time as well.  I was taking 21 credits that term, and for those of you that have taken college classes, you know that is a very full load; especially considering the other obligations in my life.  So, I was working on a paper and I was stressing about finishing it.  I don't know what started it, but he decided to make fun of me for stressing out.  That upset me because this man had no idea how hard I was working in life in general.  During the argument, he told me that when he attended the University of Oregon, he took 70 credits per term.  Really?! This was a lie that I could not let go.  I argued with him about the impossibility of such a thing and he maintained his lie.  I told him that I wanted to see his transcripts and his diploma and he said he would show me "sometime." A few days later, Frank "accidently" left a fake diploma out for me to find.  It almost makes me laugh thinking about it, because it is just so crazy.

It was not long after that argument and after finding the "diploma" that I decided to officially investigate the situation.  Every hurt woman knows how to become a private investigator.  I had already earned my PI wings after dealing with Harmony's dad- but that's another blog entry.  I called the U of O's registrar's office.  Thankfully a woman answered the line, so I could speak with her "woman to woman."  I explained that I needed to verify whether my boyfriend attended there.  At first, she said that she couldn't tell me due to privacy issues.  I explained my situation and that I needed to verify whether he was lying.  She then told me that he had never attended that school.

I confronted Frank about this shortly thereafter.  It was also around the same time that I realized he had stolen about $400 dollars from my bank account to pay for his cell phone. Can you believe that? Stealing money from a broke, single mother who is working her butt off to make a better life for herself and her child?  It blows my mind as I sit here and think about it.  Anyway, I confronted him about both issues and he became so angry that he took the Christmas presents from under the tree that he had bought Harmony and I and left me.  He tried to pick me up and acted like he was going to throw me, and that is the closest I've come to a man trying to physically hurt me like that.  Thankfully, he changed his mind and set me down.  That is when he took the presents and left.  Of course, about a month later, Frank decided he wanted me back and he begged me to let him back into my life.  Thankfully, I was at least wise enough to not agree to that and he eventually stopped and moved back to California (I believe).  I truly believe the man is sitting in a prison somewhere, as we speak. 

I'm thankful that I got away from Frank and that I eventually found a great man that I married.  I just wish I would have stopped dating Frank the minute I knew he was a liar.  If my story can help one of my friends out there that is dating a liar, that is what I want to do, and that is why I shared this experience.  If a man is lying about little things, then he is lying about much bigger, life altering things.  Who has time for that?? Life is too precious and too short to spend any time with a liar.

Shoulder Taps

During the last few miles of my marathon, I struggled.  I was mentally exhausted more than anything, because I had just spent the last few hours pushing through hills and I just did not have it in me to run any more hills.  I was starting to give up and I just wanted to finish.  I had trained for this for the last several months, running several times during the week and consistently every Sunday with Zina for my long runs, and we had practiced on hills many times.  It's not like I wasn't prepared.  It goes to show how much of a mental battle that running really is. 

Just as I started to walk a little bit during the last mile (I know, sounds crazy because I was almost done), a man that I've never met before came running up behind me and he tapped me on the shoulder.  He said "you can do this."  It was his words that helped push me to start running again and to finish strong. 

I want to share this experience because we do not truly understand how powerful encouraging words can be.  We can get so busy in our own lives that we don't take the time to encourage those around us that are working hard to accomplish their goals. 

If I wouldn't have had many "shoulder taps" throughout my life, I don't think I would be where I am now.  I don't think I would have survived being a single mom that continued with her education and eventually earned a Master's degree.  I don't think I would have survived many other hardships I've endured.  We should all take the time out of our busy lives to tap someone on the shoulder each day and encourage him or her to keep going.  We all are struggling in this life together and we can all finish strong together if we can take the focus off of ourselves for a moment.

Marathon Girl

I ran in my second marathon yesterday in Raleigh.  The race started at 7:00 and it was very chilly in the morning.  I was very thankful I purchased hand warmers prior to that, and they were helpful.  My running/training partner Zina was running late and very nervous and on the verge of tears. It was exciting to be there with her, since it was her first marathon ever.  I told her early on that she could ditch me whenever she wanted to, cause it was her race.  After I stopped to use a porta potty, it was not long after that she decided to ditch this slow girl. I will admit, I have improved on my speed over the last few months, but I was still averaging about 10.5 to 11 minutes miles, and she was trying to go faster, which was completely fine.  I brought music along, just in case she decided to do that, and just in case I couldn't find another runner to talk to.  I like to chat during these things. 

Running is, for obvious reasons, a kind of lonely sport.  I run alone most of the time, and I only get to run with a partner about once a week.  I love to chat while I'm running, especially during my long runs, since it helps me forget about the distance. After Zina went on ahead, and after my small talk attempts with a few people around me failed (some runners do not like to talk at all and I am kind of a dork, too), I put on my tunes. 

After a little bit, I started chatting with a lady and we got to talking about running. She said she liked to chat to forget about the distance as well, so I told her that I would talk with her while she finished her half marathon.  She was 63 years old and had been running for the last 30 years or so.  I love to meet older runners because I hope to run well into my older years.  I know that if I take it easy and not over do it, I should be able to. 

When running a marathon distance, 26.2 miles, the first 5 miles are pretty tough for me.  I fight my brain for most of the first 5 miles because it wants me to stop.  After that, the next 5 to 10 miles are relatively easy.  My mind is set that I will be doing this for a while, so it might get used to it.  Then, from 10 miles to 20 miles, it's typically another mental battle for me.  I have to make sure I'm well hydrated and that I'm eating especially during this time.  However, I constantly tell myself that if I can just get to 20 miles, I will be able to do all 26 (.2!).  I pray a lot from around 19 miles to 26 miles that God will help me push through these last few miles and I also visualize my finish.  During this race, my family was waiting at a spectator location, holding creative signs that Harmony made, at about mile 19, and it was perfect timing.  It was just what I needed to push me through those last few, hilly miles. 

As I sit here today, I feel sore and I wonder how soon my body will recover in order for me to start back training again for my next race.  I accomplished my goal of running this one under 5 hours, so I'm feeling great about that.  However, it's never about my speed; it's always more about pushing through those thoughts of wanting to quit.  Every mile I complete is proof of the mental battle I won.  Completing a marathon is like winning a mental war.  It feels good to be a warrior.