You Have Something Beautiful

Global pandemic.

Nation-wide quarantine.

Indefinite isolation.

I started this blog almost a decade ago now as a way to work through things like motherhood, military life, deployments, faith, and honestly, just figuring out how in the world to be a grownup. I could have never guessed back then that I would also use it to help me process the crazy events of this past month.


This story is coming to you from interior Alaska--Day 29

Some fun facts before we begin: We just wrapped up the fourth coldest winter on record up here. We haven't seen the grass since October. There is still FEET of snow on the ground. And when I woke up yesterday morning, my weather app said it was -6 degrees, so who knows?!--Maybe we're also gunning for fourth coldest spring.
You would think that interior Alaska would be a fine and fair place to isolate, and I guess that could be true for people not living on military installations. But we have our difficulties up here, too. We have very limited access to medical facilities if we do get sick. Number of healthcare workers? Not wanting to worry my pretty, unwashed head about that. No matter how far apart we are, we all go to the same few stores to grab our essential items. (There is no Target here, adding insult to injury.) Grub Hub ain't coming to me. Amazon already didn't ship certain things to us before this craziness so it's a real crap-shoot right now. Oh, and we don't have any toilet paper either.
In -6 degrees...
And feet of snow...

Words cannot express the jealousy I feel over people who are lazing away in backyard hammocks. Or swimming in their pools. Or dining on their patios. Or tending to their gardens. Or running outdoor trails. Honestly, I feel a very strong urge to buy a $2 round-trip plane ticket so I can stand six feet away and yell at them whenever they complain.
I can't watch anything on HGTV right now without thinking to myself, "Ooooh! Bet it would be nice to be quarantined there..."

All this longing for warm weather and the great outdoors has left me daydreaming about our last home in central Texas. We had a beautiful acre and a half with a pond. Bluebonnets were all over it. There was a garden, and a hammock, and an outdoor dining area, and a covered patio with a chimenea, and a herd of whitetail deer that would probably be owning the joint right now, causing a real ruckus with the garden and the dogs. But as good as all those amenities were, the thing I miss the most about that place was the glorious running trail not a mile from the house. It was my favorite.
I've thought about that trail a lot over these last 29 days.

But this morning I remembered one encounter I had on the trail in particular.
It was a weekday afternoon a few years back, and all four of us were out riding bikes on the trail. There was a section of the trail with a steep grade over a bridge that asked bike riders to dismount, and so Nate led the pack while the kids and I followed behind him. There was a woman on the oncoming side of us just ahead on the trail, accompanied by an older woman and two younger children. They stood off to the side and greeted Nathan and the kids in the amicable Texan way as we walked our bikes past them. As my eyes met hers in expectation of a similar greeting, she looked right at me and instead declared,

"You have something beautiful."

I offered an awkward thank you as I mounted back on my bike to ride away after my family, both surprised and humbled by her directness. Her words hummed around in my brain right along with the sound of my bike spokes and the wind whirring past my face until they landed firmly in my heart. You see, she couldn't have known how sweet that bike ride was for me and my kids...or how my husband had just gotten home from his third deployment...or how he had turned down an opportunity at work so we could move into the house right next to that trail...or that we had been desperate to create more moments like these for our family. She couldn't have known all the hard things that helped make that beautiful moment happen.

Today, as I replayed that scene in my head yet another time, I realized something new: I didn't know what hard things made her say those precious words to me.
I didn't know if she had recently lost her husband...or if they were divorced...or if he was away on business...or if he was even in the picture at all. I don't know if she felt a jealous or sad. All I do know is she could have used our brief encounter to ponder privately, but instead she used it to edify me.
(Years later, awkward and humbled once again.)

We're all going through hard things right now, and I've been pondering it all privately. However, I think I'd like to take a cue from the lady on the trail and tell you what I see.

***

To the mamas making adorable theme nights in your home to celebrate with your family even though your vacation plans were cancelled; who are stringing birthday celebrations out of thin air...
You are making your family feel special and loved. You are making happy memories in a hard time. You are creating joy out of loss.
"You have something beautiful."

To the families that are learning how to sew together to donate goods; who are making it a point to drive past their friends houses to wave on a hard day; who have dropped off or mailed out meals or treats or goodies so people do not feel forgotten...
You are teaching your children how to serve others in spirit and in deed. You are teaching the rest of us how to stay truly connected, even in the midst of isolation.
"You have something beautiful."

To the teachers who are putting together learning opportunities for your students all hours of the day at home; who are making themselves available for email and video chat all the time; who are making worksheets and experiments that you are sharing for us parents outside your district via social media; who are out with the district delivering meals so no family is overlooked; to the homeschooling community who helped us navigate the waters of those first tricky days...
You are showing us the readiness and resiliency of the loving heart. Even remotely, you are still giving us a village to help raise our babies.
"You have something beautiful."

To the mamas/dads who are doing this solo...
You are your child's champion. You are their safe place. I promise you, you are their inspiration. You are going into every single one of their application essays from now until the end of time. You look like sacrificial, faithful, amazing love.
"You have something beautiful."

To the people who are navigating this all alone...
You are amazing and selfless. You are making art. You are making us laugh. You are making us cry. You are making us remember why we were given community...you are reminding us to be a better one.
"You have something beautiful."

To the essential workers who are going into work every single day into a work atmosphere that's just gone plumb crazy, then come home and help field the emotional burden of your family that has been stuck at home (direct shout-out to my husband)...
How are you doing it, selflessly giving yourself all day long? Coming home and stripping down and showering off, and then showing *all the way up for us.* Not taking any time to decompress. Not making me feel too needy. Giving me grace for my outbursts when you are under just as much stress, if not more so.
You have been doing this all along for us, and I didn't always see it.
"You have something beautiful." That lady on the trail was so right. I have something beautiful in you.

To the mamas who have new babies in this crazy time...
You are making love bigger than fear. You are helping us all remember the beauty of life right when it seems the most frail.
"You have something beautiful."

To my stay-at-home mamas...
You do not always feel valued. I want you to remember that in this moment, the world turned sideways and all your family had to do was go into the sanctuary of the space you had been creating for them all along. Home-cooked meals and family dinners were already commonplace. Home was ready and waiting for them. You were ready and waiting. Things were changing up left and right, but you offered stability. If you feel like that was not a contribution in this time, then you are wrong. You have created the haven of home for your loved ones.
"You have something beautiful."

***

There are so, so many more things to see, and I know I'm nowhere close to touching the scope of this.
There is beauty all in the hard things. That's part of what makes them so beautiful.
Just do me and the lady on the trail a favor. If you see something beautiful, then just say it.

Lessons from a Crock-Pot

Seven years ago, (which is approximately 127 blogging years ago,) I composed a post right around my birthday titled "Lessons from a Cheesecake." In it, I talked all about how I tried to make my traditional birthday cheesecake be worthy of a Better Homes & Gardens prize-winning recipe contest and it all went horribly, horribly wrong. A few years later, I wrote again about my birthday cheesecake--lamenting the fact that my long-loved tradition was approaching its last hurrah, because aging and lactose are dumb.

And that's how we got here, people. Birthdays, and cheesecakes, and lactose intolerance.
(And a dinosaur that has 127 blogging years under her belt.)
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Have I ever shared the story about the first time I cried because I lived in Alaska? It's a real doozie.
I wish I could tell you that it was a warranted cry--that I felt lonely, and far away, and stressed out, and missed my family and friends. But that wasn't the reason.

I cried over a ruined dinner.

Living in the interior of Alaska has presented so, so many different challenges for us. Because we knew going into it that it would be lonely, far away, and hard, we decided to live on a military installation. We thought it would be smart to have a built-in community in a place that is usually famous for being people-less. We thought it would be helpful to have stores and emergency supplies close at hand so I wouldn't have to drive an hour through the wilderness in the wintertime any time we needed anything. We thought it would be smart to have the children live close to their schools instead of having to be bussed who-knows-how-long to who-knows-where. And we especially thought it would be smart to try to keep the kids' routines as close to "normal" as we could get them.

I think every family has their own "crazy thing." Maybe you are the all-natural, everything-from-scratch family. Maybe you are the extra-extravagant, everything's-an-extra-special occasion family. We are the extra-busy, nine-hundred-extracurriculars family. My children have a lot of loves and I don't want to lock them into one thing too early---and so I cave and let them do allllll the things.
This is what that looks like in Alaska:
"Hey, super job trying to make your life easier by living on post, Liz, but you're still going to have to drive for hours all over interior Alaska on winter roads that are paved PRIMARILY in ICE AND SNOW PACK, mmkay? Also, enjoy crock-pot dinners several nights a week because, girlfriend, that's the only way y'all will ever eat hot food."

One night, after several hours of running my children hither and thither to their various activities, I came home to discover that the dinner I had prepared for us to eat had never actually been turned on. Yes, the slow cooker had pulled a fast one on me.
Refusing to be defeated so easily, I started doing a mental run through of my options. I could buy a rotisserie chicken from the Commissary (our grocery store.) Oh shoot. Nevermind. It's closed today... I could swing by the Burger King and grab some fast food. Check hours. Nope. Closes at 7p.m. That's lame... Grrr. Go out to eat? Negative. Nasty restaurant on post also closes at 7. Like, WHY EVEN BE A RESTAURANT,THEN?! Gas station? Gas station is still open...

That's when the tears came.
Moments later, my poor husband came in the door and saw me weeping, cursing Alaska and all of its 7 p.m. closing times, saying really weird things like "Don't they know that moms are humans?! Don't they know that sometimes we forget to turn on our Crock-Pots?! Do they expect us to never burn dinners?! Why does Alaska HATE ALL MOTHERS?!?"
We did eventually eat that September night...Inside a Wendy's with 25 Christmas trees in it. Only took us an hour of driving, round trip.
(Yes you read that right. One hour of driving for Wendy's. And yes, that really is our best option--unless you particularly love gas station food.)

(And yes, the Christmas lights in September were lovely.)


It's such a silly story, I know, but it does have a point.

It's been a lifelong habit of mine to make snap judgments. I did it in Missouri. I did it again in Austin. And I certainly did it here.
Shortly after that experience, I decided that I was ready to leave Alaska. It just wasn't for me. It just wasn't for us. It was too expensive. It was too far. It was too harsh of a climate. It was too "behind the times." (Plus, it didn't help that it hated all mothers.)

And y'all, I got my wish.
Exactly 6 months after our arrival here, we learned that the Army is needing my husband elsewhere. My household goods were unboxed in August, and will be put right back into boxes in May. (I'm already tired just thinking about it.)

It's probably what makes me judge places so quickly, this never having enough time. Needing everything to work *just so* on my crazy-tight schedule.

So many of us are living in pressure-cooker worlds where we expect everything to be done in minutes.
But a lot of things in life take a little bit more time to be ready.

Crock-Pots are marvelous because they're slow. It tenderizes things until they are so easy to handle that they fall right into place. It cooks things fully, but without drying them out. It takes raw things and makes them safe, without smoking everybody out of the place in the process. You just have to give it enough time. (And, you know, turn it on.)

Alaska may not have been every single thing that I was wishing for, but I look back at all of the stories that I wrote here and I realize that I have learned so much. And I truly am so very grateful that I was here for those lessons!

And seven years down the road from my very first documented kitchen mishap, I *still* may not be every single thing that I was wishing for yet--but another birthday and a little extra time has taught me this:
The longer it takes,
the more tender I am towards others.
the less likely I am to burnout as I reach it,
(or burn anyone else in the process.)
the more delicious it will be when it's finally ready.


So here's to all of us who are taking a bit longer to "find our finish." TURN IT ON, and then keep it going. It will be worth the wait.

"Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." (Philippians 1:6)

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Just as a TOTAL throwback, I thought it'd be fun to give you my favorite Crock-Pot recipe. :)

"Moose Drip Sammi's"

You need:
-2 1/2 lb chuck roast (or moose roast if you're in Alaska) ;)
-2 c beef broth
-1/2 c soy sauce
-1/4 c Worcestershire sauce
-3 T brown sugar

{-1 T garlic powder
-1 T onion powder
-1 T Italian seasoning
-salt
-pepper}

{these are all completely made up measurements. HA! just season to taste.}

Dump everything in a slow cooker. DEAR GOODNESS, DON'T FORGET TO TURN IT ON. Low is good. Cook beef for 4-5 hours. (Moose takes even longer!) Get out forks and shred meat in the crock. Put on top of toasted bun with provolone cheese. Add horseradish sauce to the bun if you love yourself. Ladle juices into ramekin for sandwich dunking if you really, really love yourself.

The Dependent

Anyone who has spent even a small amount of time around military personnel knows that its professionals operate under their own distinct language. Just like any profession, there is a specific jargon unique to the military tradition and those who serve in it. But perhaps unlike other professions, this "work language" spills over into the speech patterns of those non-military service members who marry into the lifestyle.

Here are just a few examples:

duty station: (noun) constantly changing military instillation where the service member is assigned to work, and their families sometimes have to live.
ex: What is your current duty station? (Me:)The middle of nowhere, AK.

PCS: (Permanent Change of Station:) (verb) to move (noun) relocation
ex: We are planning to PCS this summer.* We are still replacing damaged goods from our latest PCS.
*One of the most spoken phrases in the military circle.

RFO: (Request for Orders:) (noun) document received before the official orders are released, containing information regarding an upcoming PCS. Usually details upcoming duty station and projected reporting date.*
*Subject to change and take 900 years to receive.
ex: I want to start planning for our PCS this summer, but we haven't even received our RFO.

tracking: (verb) to follow along, have a general understanding about
ex: (Him:) You remember that I will be in the field next month? (Me:) Yes, I'm tracking.

roger: (exclamation) expressing message received and understood
ex: (Him:) Don't forget to insulate the outside faucets if it freezes while I'm away. (Me:) Roger.


Most of these terms I learned and adopted without too much guff, but there was one that I hated right off the bat:

dependent: (noun) Any person, regardless of age, abiding in the household of the military member
ex: (Them:) Are you the service member or the dependent of the household? (Me:)*insert eye roll*

It's not that anybody ever meant anything negative by the term. It is antiquated to be sure, but it was never intended to be offensive. The issue that I've been noticing lately, though, is that a title which used to sting and give rise to this fiery indignation in me has effectively worn me down--as words tend to do. Over the past decade, this silly term has changed me; it dulled me; perhaps I even let it weaken me.

As certain stereotypical nuances of the "dependent" title were assigned, some members of the military community have unfortunately birthed more derogatory off-shoots of the original:
"Dependa": (noun) Largely directed toward females; a military spouse who presumably derives all identity and livelihood from her service member.
"Dependa-potamus": (noun) as above, only more hurtful and stupid
I'm not giving any examples here, because they are not helpful.

I do not work outside the home right now by choice. Maybe I will again one day, but very purposefully, not this day. So yes, I do count on my husband's paycheck. And I do sometimes speak the language even though I don't work the job. And my life is directly affected by this job every day, even though I didn't raise my hand and take the oath--and so now some big parts of my own identity are wrapped up in this military lifestyle too.
That does not make me dependent or any derogatory variation thereof.
It just makes me a teammate.

I am just as involved in my household, finances, child-rearing, relationship, and life goals as I would be if I were on someone's payroll. In my house, my advice is just as highly considered. My responsibilities are just as lofty.
I promise you, my family is just as dependent on me as I am on them. That is what being a member of a team is about.

The titles we assign to each other--and to ourselves--matter.

(And it's why we were given such a great one!)

"I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other." (John 15:17)

Friend, what have you been calling yourself lately that is not so lovely?
(Or maybe, what have you called someone else that wasn't helpful?)

Make it right.
Give it another name. One that's better and true.
Included. Chosen. Appointed. Friend.

Strong.
Resilient.
Capable.
Valued.
Fiery.

Dependent? Yes, every day. But on Christ alone.




(And, you know, also on my antiquated military ID.) Fix it, Uncle Sam :/

The Restart

There are several things that I was not mentally prepared for before moving to Alaska.

I didn't think about how difficult it was going to be to get all of my stuff here from Texas.
I didn't think about (or refused to believe) how much more everything cost up here. (It's scary.)
I didn't think about how frequently I was going to have to drive 47 minutes into town--each way, on a highway through Alaskan wilderness--just to get basic household supplies.
I didn't think about how often I would drive those 94 minutes just to discover that the two whole stores in town would not have what I needed.
I didn't think about how all of the fun outdoor tourist-y things would close in September. And then not open again until May.
I didn't think about how I might move from a single family home on an acre and a half with a fishing pond into a townhouse with a teeny backyard on a military installation.
I could have never fathomed in a million years that my children would be attending a school that does not have a cafeteria. (A cafeteria, y'all!!!)

I didn't even think about little things--like how much more it would rain here.
Or how slow my Internet would be.
Or what I'd do for dinner if I forgot to turn on the crockpot and everything around me closed at 7 pm.

And I most definitely didn't think about how the place I had dreamed about going for so long would be such an instantaneous struggle.

I didn't have any reservations when we first learned we were moving here about how I would like it. I knew it would be beautiful. I never for one moment thought it would be hard. Cold, but not hard.
I was excited. My family was excited. My friends were excited. My church was excited. I'm pretty sure that complete strangers were excited.
Alaska is a dream destination, and people really seemed to rally around it.

I moved with a bunch of enthusiasm and good vibes. I explored new things with fresh eyes. People were responsive and supportive. Everything felt full of promise.
Sure, there were some hard bits when we first arrived here, but I was being powered by the newness of it all. I could endure the first hiccups, power through the first challenges, and make the first hard choices because I was running on the momentum from the launch.

But eventually, as it always does, the newness wore off and the rallying went away. The hiccups kept coming. The challenges kept stacking up. Hard choices started to look an awful lot like bad options.
And I still had to live here.


Last week is the first time that I cried about living in Alaska--not about my stuff, or because I was feeling lonely, or because I was mad that my kids don't have a cafeteria in their school and I can't remember how to plug in a crockpot. I cried about having to live in my dream destination after it stopped being dreamy.

I realized I had two options here:
1. Be miserable
2. Start over

(Guess which one I choose.)

One thing that I have come to expect in this particular lifestyle is that--even with the really good things--there will always be a need to restart.
Military homecomings are followed by reintegration periods.
Promotions often come with a relocation.
Block leave leads to another training cycle.
"Dwell time" is followed by another deployment.

Newness is the thing that's often celebrated in our culture. But hardly anything lasting is accomplished during the initial launch.
Almost all of life's successes are achieved in the long game.
You win because you keep choosing to restart.

Persistence, man. That's the less-shiny stuff.
That's the stuff that's done in secret, without the excitement or rallying or momentum.

It's the stuff that's hard to recruit cheerleaders for because it looks like driving for 94 minutes for a toilet bowl cleaner, or completing your morning run in the rain (again), or figuring out how to feed your family after 7 pm if you accidentally ruin dinner.
It's the stuff that keeps you doing the workouts even after you skip a day. Or five.
It's the stuff that keeps you attending the new church even though you feel invisible in it.
It's the stuff that keeps you looking for your people even though you feel lonely.
It's the stuff that keeps you looking for your place even though you feel lost.

It's the stuff that keeps you fighting to love something even after it stops looking dreamy.

(Bonus points for Alaska. It is really good at looking dreamy.)

(Just remember, schools don't even have cafeterias here.)

I don't know what it is, friend.
Job? Fitness? Education? Faith? Service? Relationship?
You started out shiny and full of momentum, and then everything just kind of...stalls. The shine wears off. The people rallying for you seem to have gone silent.

Restart anyway.
It probably won't look glamorous, and that's okay.
You know what things look like after they're done looking dreamy?
They look real.

And that real world--that's where we get out of our head space and get the good stuff done.

We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, so that what you hope for may be fully realized.
(Hebrews 6:11)

(Here's to all the restarts. May everything you hope for be fully realized!)

Choice Words

Words have a pretty lasting effect on me.
(Go figure, huh?)


Not very long after my husband and I had started living together, we were watching t.v. and a commercial for a certain cleaning product came on.
The main character was a housewife, and after she kissed her family and sent them on their merry way, she spent the day reading a magazine, going shopping, and meeting her friends for lunch. Then she hurried home right before her family, sprayed some deodorizer in the air, and settled in to receive the compliments for the "good work" she had done.
My husband simply said,
"Yeah, that won't be a thing."

That's it--a passing comment about a silly commercial that he probably doesn't even remember he made. (A commercial that the producers of the cleaning product probably don't even remember that they made.)
It shouldn't have made any impression on me at all, but the whole thing has resonated with me for years and years. (Over a decade now, to be exact.) I have a fair amount of guilt if I do something leisurely while my family is out for the day. I have a fair amount of guilt if I don't get certain housekeeping chores done while my family is out for the day. *I even have a fair amount of guilt if I use that dumb cleaning product!!*
My husband's fleeting commentary about that one commercial has strongly dictated how I spend my day as a homemaker.



Then I moved into this house with these stupid floors that never seem to get clean.
They bothered me enough all on their own, but then our sweet neighbor girl came to visit. She stood in the entryway waiting for my daughter to tie her shoes so they could run off to play, and simply said,
"My mom won't let us have dogs that shed, because they make the floors too dirty."

That's it--a passing comment from a sweet little girl about dogs. It shouldn't have made an impression on me at all. But now whenever she comes over to ask my daughter to play, I find myself scanning the floors for dog fluff. (I maybe have even begun running a vacuum over the entry area after I sweep it, just to be sure I've gotten it all.)
A little girl's fleeting commentary about what her mama thinks has strongly dictated what I do in my own house.



Now I realize that these confessions make me look like I'm a crazy person who should get a grip. (And clearly, I should.)
But I felt the need to share these things with you anyway, because maybe for the first time ever, I see that
it might not be the words that have such a lasting effect on me, but the opinions that generate them.


I want my husband to think that what I do around the house all day is worthwhile.
I want my neighbors to think that my home is an acceptable place for their children to come and build Lego creations on the floor at whim.

(I want people to read this blog post and see an insightful, self-aware woman instead of an insecure person who let a little girl get in her head.)

I don't know if it's because I move around all the time and constantly need new sources of validation; or because I chose to be a stay-at-home-mom in the age of female empowerment; or because I moved back onto a military installation where everyone's houses are lined up right next to each other looking exactly the same, except for the dumb blank plot of soil that forces you to showcase your individuality and abilities solely via your gardening skills...
I just want to be accepted.

And it's dictating how I hear people.
And it's dictating what I think about.
And it's dictating how I live.

I've fallen into an easy trap, friends. (And perhaps I'm not alone in here.)
Fortunately, there is a way out.

We just need to trade one set of words for another.

Words that say it doesn't matter how you keep your home, but who you keep in it. (Luke 10:38-42)
Words that say it doesn't matter how you present yourself to your neighbor, but how you treat them. (Mark 12:30-31)
Words that say you don't have to seek approval, because you have already been accepted. (Romans 5:8)

And the thing is, these words will have the same effect as the others:
They will dictate how we hear people. (James 1:19)
And they will what we think about. (Phillipians 4:8)
And they will dictate how we live. (Romans 12:2)

(But I'm guessing it will be a lot less crazy-sounding when you try to tell people about it a decade later.)

Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.
(Proverbs 29:25)

Let's choose our words wisely.

Playing House

About six years ago, I made a promise in a blog entry that I would write a story about my grandmother.
Then a few months ago at a family gathering, I made a promise to my grandfather that I would write a story about my grandmother.

You guys, it is time for that story.
*****


I'm pretty sure I have the nicest grandmother in the entire world.

Now I know that everyone thinks, "Big deal. All grandmas are nice." But my grandmother's kindness is the stuff of legend.
I honestly have heard someone tell me a story about a time she gently talked an angry, knife-wielding man away from a vehicle with her friends inside. Now I have never asked my grandmother about the validity of such a tale--and neither did the teller--but that is, in fact, what makes it a legend. That we would believe such a thing could happen without the need to verify it is just a testament to her character.


I can remember exactly one time that I've ever heard the woman raise her voice, and it was in fear and not in anger.
I can remember maybe three whole times I've ever heard her complain.
I can remember a million times I've heard her laugh.

Gentleness, kindness, patience, peace, goodness...
My grandmother is dripping in all of those things.

And if that doesn't make her sound lovely enough, she also has the skin of someone like half her age.
(Unfortunately I'm not so sure that I've inherited such character traits.)

But there is one part of me that favors my grandmother very much so, and I'm reminded of it every time I move into a new house.

My grandmother is an Air Force wife turned preacher's wife, and she spent her entire adult life moving, moving, and moving some more. My grandparents never really had a lot of money, and my grandmother certainly wasn't materialistic by any stretch---
But she really loved her stuff.

My mother remembers how my grandfather would question if they were going to have to move *all* of her knick-knacks yet again
...and then my sweet, gentle grandma would look at him like he was wasting his breath.
Of course they were going to move *all* of the stuff...It was her stuff!!!

I loved my grandmother's stuff when I was little. There were certain things you could count on to be there no matter what. The teddy bears in the kitchen. The family photos lining the entertainment center. The recliner that was just right for watching the t.v. on upside down. The footstool that you're not supposed to jump off of unless you want Grandma to get scared and yell...

No matter where they ended up, no matter if I'd been there twenty times or never before in my life, my grandparents' house always felt like my grandparents' house.
And it gave me a sense of homecoming in a place that wasn't my home.

What I thought was an act of frugality when I was younger seems so intentional now, especially as an adult who is also trying to make a home out of a strange new place every few years.
The stuff was more than just stuff to her.
It was the evidence of stewardship. It was the means to hospitality. It was familiarity and stability in a brand new place. And it was the source of the memories that reminded everyone that they were cared for and loved, no matter where they went.

Honestly, I think that's why I went all crazy when it took so long to get my household goods here. I wasn't longing for the things themselves. I was longing for the sense of homecoming I knew they would bring me---that I was eager to bring to my family.

(...And perhaps the ease of some modern appliances. And the fluff of my sweet, sweet bed.)

Well, I'm happy to report that I don't have to miss my things anymore, because MY STUFF HAS FINALLY ARRIVED IN ALASKA!!!

These past few days we have been feverishly setting up rooms, hanging pictures, and settling in. And just like my grandma's house always did, it feels familiar even though it's not. With every item we unwrap, we exhale.
We are loved. We are cared for. We are home.

No matter where we go.

For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. (Hebrews 3:4)

(Thank you for the wonderful childhood memories you built for me, Grandma!)
xo

Accentuate the Up

Right before my family left Texas for our 4,000 mile trek to Alaska, I decided to train for and run a half marathon on the local trail just behind my house. To get myself ready for the task, I dedicated three days a week to run training, three days a week to strength training, one day a week to flexibility training, and one glorious day a week to my favorite fitness component--REST. This is basically what my morning calendar looked like for about ten weeks prior to moving, and I was in some pretty solid shape when I left.

But then I sat my solidly-shaped glutes in a car for twelve straight days.
And then I perfected my "rest day" craft for an entire month after that.

(My glutes are still shaped like something, but I don't want to talk about it.)

After venting a little about our moving situation last week, I decided that one of the best things to make this place feel more like home was to establish a new morning fitness routine. Yesterday was the kick-off, because I figured a new week deserves a new start.
(But new starts don't necessarily mean fresh starts, y'all.)
As I struggled through my twenty minute workout, it was hard not to get discouraged. It was even harder not to take it easy. (I am pretty good at resting, after all.) But as I struggled to make my muscles relearn how to bear weight, I remembered something I had been coached on before:

When you are pushing for the top of the exercise, accentuate the up.
In other words, when you are getting ready to do something hard, put in extra effort on the way up to help carry you to the top.

In a workout, what this does is cue all of your muscles correctly so you don't strain yourself as you start to fatigue. Most injuries happen as people get sloppy and lose form. It also keeps you from growing discouraged, because you are focusing on the effort in the middle instead of the distance from the bottom to the top.
What I've come to find is that this extra effort in the middle of the exercise--in the climb--somehow makes getting to the top not seem quite as hard.

This doesn't have to be specific to single exercises, but is true in fitness as a whole.

Most people can't pinpoint the exact moment that they were able to become distance runners--it's a slow build. In my run training, I just started where I was at (a little shy of 3 miles) and tacked on one more mile, then another, and another, and another. Three days of running a week for eight weeks doesn't seem like it should have been enough to add on ten miles to my ability. But I pressed hard through the middle, and it carried me to my goal at the top.
Strength training isn't much different. It's amazing what can happen when you tell yourself to do just one more than last time. *Just one more.* Eventually you realize that adding one more rep isn't challenging enough and you have to add heavier weights. There's no one moment it happened and you were magically strong enough. The effort in the middle carries you to your gains at the top.

And crazier still, this doesn't have to be specific to fitness, but to your life as a whole.

Moving to a new place is always scary for me, because it challenges me to look at my life and see how I can grow. I always have to struggle with the questions of whether or not I will work, where I want to serve in the community and in my church, how I can foster opportunities for my children, how I can carve out quality time for my marriage, how I can build new friendships, how I can experience new things, learn new skills, and how I can make this place feel like my favorite place that we've ever lived. (Because I always want to be striving towards better!) It's a daunting task, to be sure. When I think about all of the things I'm hoping for at the end, it's easy to get discouraged and overwhelmed at how far I have to go.
(And as I unfortunately learned in my last home, being an expert-level rest-er makes it far too easy not to push and just to settle.)

If that mistake has taught me anything, it's this:
We're not supposed to strive. That doesn't mean we're not supposed to grow.

Newsflash, friends:
Growth takes effort.
And form.
And persistence.
And time.

The good news is, if you're working, you're probably growing.
(Unless you're my glutes, in which case the opposite is true. HA!)

And you don't have to do anything crazy to start, aside from *just one more thing.*
Accentuate the up, friends. Put in that extra effort.

We'll see each other at the top.

More than Enough

Well friends, it has now been thirty-one days since my all of my household goods were packed up into boxes, wrapped up like Christmas presents, and loaded into the back of some truck. We had reserved only a couple of boxes-worth of things for ourselves to help us make the move from Texas to Alaska: About six days of outfits, 3 shoes, 2 pajamas, and 2 swimsuits a piece. We brought some car activities to help entertain the kids on their 4,000 mile move, to include a few novels, a couple puzzle books, some journals and sketchpads, colored pencils, a handful of DVD's and pretty much every hand-held gaming device that we owned. (Because 4,000 miles, people.) Every self-care item that I brought for the four of us fit into two tiny kits.
The dogs have their food bowls and leashes.
We brought the family documents in a small safe.
I'm typing this on a laptop.

Our family stayed in hotels every night of our twelve-day journey, but we had packed some sleeping bags just in case.
We have now been using our "just in case" sleeping bags for one whole week.


The things that were so carefully boxed and wrapped and loaded away one month ago today are basically M.I.A. (We're hoping en route on a boat, but we don't really know for sure.) Those things in the couple boxes we brought are the things that I have to make a home. To dress our bodies. To work. To play.
I don't really consider myself a super-materialistic person, but I have cried about this. More than once.

I start to cry because I'm frustrated. I'm frustrated that it's taking so long. I'm frustrated because I don't know why our moving coordinator is not communicating with us. I'm frustrated because I want so badly for my children to be comfortable in their new home, and I want our family to start feeling settled here, and that's hard to do in those "just in case" sleeping bags.

But then I start to cry because I get mad at myself for feeling frustrated.
Of course we are fortunate enough to buy some new stuff, and we have. (Just don't ask me about the prices in Alaska, or I'll start crying again.) Having no things has made ample opportunities to explore our new surroundings. We have a house. We have some clothes. We have water and food and just-in-case sleeping bags.
And we have each other.

These should be the most important things, I know, but I am still sitting around crying about my stuff.
It's made me do a lot of questioning on my definition of "enough."

My family was so excited about moving to Alaska, we could hardly contain it. The promise of adventure, the unparalleled beauty, the wildness, the roughness, the super-cold, the super-dark, the super-sun---I wanted all of it. It never crossed my mind that it would start out so--I don't know--miserably. I reminded me of another rough start I had heard about before:

The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death." (Exodus 16: 1-3)

But the very next verse spoke something into my soul that I can't shake.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions.

This is a lesson I'm still in the process of learning to be sure, but I think the main points of the story are coming together for me.

The people grumbled, but the Lord gave.
I am more uncomfortable than I wish I was, but I am not without. Complaining to my husband isn't the answer. Griping on social media isn't the answer. I've learned when I'm anxious about my stuff, just to pray about it. Psalm 38:9 says, You know what I long for, Lord; You hear my every sigh. The Lord has heard me sigh a lot, y'all.
And He's provided.
(Which brings me to the second point:)

He rained down blessings out of the sky, but the people had to pick it up.
For the first little while that we were here, we got to stay in a fully furnished townhouse with maid service. (Again, let me go cry about it, right?!) While we were staying there, the woman in the unit next door came out and told us about a program on post that lets you borrow furniture for free while you wait for your stuff. It's not flashy or fancy, but it's a bed, table and chairs, washer and dryer. It fills the need.
Now her information alone felt like manna raining down, but it wouldn't have done us any good if we didn't figure out where the building was and how to request it, (and then follow up with them after they missed our original delivery date.)
I guess what I'm trying to say is, the blessings are out there, but that doesn't mean we always just get to sit there and have them fall in our laps.

And that leads into the final point:

This is only a test.
Which I admit sounds a little scary, but we are taught not to fear the tests--for they refine us.
Particularly in this season, I am feeling pressed to evaluate things like:
What really gives my life richness?
What really makes a settled home? (Namely, why do I think I need stupid things like wall art to feel "settled?")
What do we really need?
What have I been taking for granted?
How do I take this frustration and turn it into contentment--gratitude, even?
The thing about the manna is, if the people didn't gather, they wouldn't get fed. But if they took too much, then it went rotten.
What are some good things that I might have taken too much of?
And the real kicker--Am I trusting God to provide for us? Every need? Every day?


I don't expect this to be a thing that I magically get better at overnight. (And I pray I don't need 40 years like the Israelites.) But tonight when I lay in my borrowed bed with my just-in-case sleeping bag, if my eyes start to well up with frustrated tears, then I will remember to reset with these words:
Pray; Gather; Believe.

(And if I need His words, and not mine:)

But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. (Philippians: 4:19)

Whatever I need, He gives enough.
(Help me believe it better, Lord.)

Rough Edges

I talk a lot about the beautiful trail next to my house. But I feel like I should finally share with you that not every bit of the beautiful trail is exactly...well...beautiful.

Some of it runs beside a sparkling lake and some of it goes under a highway overpass.
Some of it is beautifully shaded by fern bluffs and live oaks and some of it has the sun beating down on you because people can't stop building subdivisions everywhere.
Some of it is sweetly scented by wildflowers and grasses and some of it smells like an animal came upon its unfortunate demise.
Some of it runs along creeks and waterfalls and some of it takes you by a drainage ditch.

Don't get me wrong. It's the best public trail I've ever seen. It's well kept and feels safe and is such a fun, unexpected bit of nature in the city. I use it all the time, because I really do enjoy it.

But even lovely things have some rougher edges.

Today my run training was done largely on my least favorite part of the trail. A busier-than-it-should-be country road is largely visible on one side of it. There is almost no shade. (It was absolutely horrible today since we are already pushing triple digits in Texas.) It is the one and only part of the trail where I have to cross through street traffic. There's a large subdivision that leveled off what should have been a beautiful, tree-covered hill. There is always something that smells rotten in this one section where the two-lane road curves a little too quickly. (Poor critters.)

You might be wondering why, if I dislike this part so much, I would choose to run here today---and I am with you, friend. Most of the time I will go out of my way to run on the parts that I find more enjoyable. Too easy.
But the thing about my least favorite part of the trail is that it *just so happens* to be the closest access point to the trail from my house. Therefore, it will be both the very first 1.5 miles and the very last 1.5 miles of my 13.1 mile run. (This is how luck often works out for me, y'all.)

I've found that a lot of things in life work out like that, though.
We will have a drive and a dream, and so much of following that dream will take us through something lovely and good. We will see and experience so many unexpected delights along the way. But, the two roughest parts of that journey will almost always be at the start and the finish.

Starting is hard. I get it. I can almost always tell how a run is going to go after the first mile. Sometimes everything just clicks and I'm able to settle in and just coast for a while. But sometimes I burn too hot out of the gate and I struggle to correct my pacing. Sometimes the run ahead seems too daunting and it makes me hesitant to go all in. Sometimes you know that the good stuff is around the bend, but first you have to go through something all hot and stinky and unpleasant to look at.

And the end...don't even get me started on the end. Some of you are strong finishers so you might not relate, but I can find endings very discouraging. You've heard me talk about grace through perseverance enough that it should not surprise you even a little bit to hear that I finish sloppy. It's a "struggle bus" situation almost every time. Endings are where body parts are numb and almost always aching. There is almost always a hill. It's a hundred degrees at nine o'clock in the morning and there is no shade for the last 1.5 miles, so I'm almost always chaffing somewhere unfortunate. And I'm tired. So very, very tired.

***

This stinkin' Army move has put me at the start and finish line at the same time. We're at the end of our time in Texas. Chaffed by dealing with landlords, aching from dealing with strong kid emotions, feeling like we're at the uphill part of getting everything squared away on time, numb to all of the sweet kiddos' end-of-the-school-year activities (because they still have TWO MORE WEEKS! GAH!) and so very, very tired of waiting for it all to just be complete.
But then, I'm also approaching the starting line of our time in Alaska. I'm worried over whether or not we're prepared enough. Our 4,000 mile trip seems daunting to say the least. I'm anxious to see what the first leg of our road trip says about how we should do the rest of our "pacing." And if I'm being honest, I'm a bit hesitant because I don't know exactly what I'm getting myself into.

But I'm all in--for ALL of it--because I know this journey will lead me somewhere lovely and good. I'm sure there will be stinky parts along the way that are not altogether beautiful. But even so, I'm going in fully anticipating to be delighted. We'll push through the hard stuff so we won't miss out on the beautiful parts. We know that beautiful things can handle some rough edges.

And we also know that those are the kinds of things worth seeing through from beginning to end.

***

Today I trained on my least favorite part of the trail. Do you know why I practice going through the hard stuff, friend?
To teach myself that I can overcome rough edges in pursuit of lovely things.





Cheering you on, whatever leg of the race you're in.

The Purge

I don't think that I've mentioned it officially on this blog yet, so it would probably be worth stating outright that my family is moving this summer.

...from the Great State of TEXAS to ALASKA!!!

I should also mention that we are planning to do the 4000+ move in 14 days, riding together in a diesel truck with our two dogs, hauling a 16ft trailer with our other vehicle loaded on the back of it, all through Canada on the Alcan Highway. Y'all, if I haven't earned the title of "Crazy Woman Driver" by now, then I don't know how I ever will.


(We are less than 30 days away from moving day, and I *might* only have a half of my sanity left as I write this post. Just so you know.)

There's so much to do and to plan for any move, regardless of distance or destination.
Cancelling services, scheduling all of the necessary dentist/doctor/vet/haircut-with-the-lady-who-finally-knows-what-I-want appointments, scheduling movers, planning going away parties with kids' friends and last dinners with our friends, reserving hotels, researching a whole new city, finding a suitable home, registering kiddos in new schools...
But none of these things stress me out as much as sorting through all the stuff in our house and deciding what is moving on with us and what is going away.

I would like to think that this past decade as a military spouse has made me pretty good at filtering through our stuff, but I know that I'm not. Maybe it's because we started out with absolutely nothing, or maybe I'm just overly sentimental, but I remember the who's and how's and why's almost every single thing in my house--and that always makes it really hard to let any of those things go.

The frugal person in me doesn't want to throw out that thing that I spent x amount of dollars on and only used one time.
The resourceful person in me doesn't want to get rid of anything that might not be exactly right for the space, but could probably still work okay if I tweaked it a bit or just made due.
The practical person in me dreads getting rid of anything that I know would immediately need to be replaced.
The anxious person in me doesn't want to throw out anything that may be useful even one time in my new home.
The deeply emotional person in me can't bear to part with the sweet gift a friend/family member gave me but I can't use anymore...

And the wanderer in me wants to get rid of absolutely everything and start fresh.

So basically, I'm a mess.

A couple weeks ago my mind was becoming overwhelmed by all the unknowns of this upcoming move and all of the figuring out I still had to do when this verse brought me back:

"Everything is permissible," but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible," but not everything builds up." (1 Corinthians 10:23 CSB)

Now, I'm not saying this verse was written to help choose the things that need to stay and go inside of our homes, but it is helping me sort through my stuff just the same.

First of all, these things that I keep stressing over...it's all just stuff. And better yet, it's all permissible. It's all already been counted and approved by the moving company. Even if I can't sort through it all before it's moving day, it will be okay. It can all come.

But as I do my sorting, I ask myself these questions:

Is it beneficial?
Does it help build me up?

If it is not useful or edifying, then I don't need to take it.

Sometimes the things that I need to get rid of are very clear. I always have a pile of old magazines tucked away somewhere that were fun to look at once, but I know don't need to come along. There are clothes that don't fit or flatter me anymore. There are sheer curtains that helped me enjoy the sunny days in Texas, but are not going to do me a lick of good in the never-ending summer days in Alaska. These things won't benefit me at all in my new home. They might have been nice for a season, but now are only going to choke out pounds of our family's weight allowance.

Sometimes getting rid of things takes more careful consideration. There are the kitchen tools that would probably be nice to have, but I don't know how to use. There are kid toys and trinkets that are fully functional (and perhaps even valuable) but serve absolutely no real purpose for us anymore. There was a beautiful guitar that I carried around with me for eight whole years before I could finally admit to myself that I would never play it enough to justify bringing it along. I can keep carrying these things around with me to store them in cabinets where they will sit and collect dust, or I can release them to people who might truly benefit from them.

And not just sometimes, but every single time, I am shocked by the amount of straight-up garbage that gets collected in my home throughout the years. These are things that I broke and I meant to fix, but didn't--or maybe decided wasn't worth the effort. These are things that I didn't feel like sorting through in the moment and then just left to keep piling up in the nooks and crannies of my home. These are even things that at one point in my life I believed were worth an actual investment of my time, and money, and space, but are now just plain old, useless junk. These are the things that nobody wants or needs, and I just watch in horror as they pile up in my garbage can, wondering, "How did I ever let all of this sneak in??"

It's tiresome work going through the rooms in my house, sorting through items one by one, and deciding their fate. Probably the hardest part of motivating myself to do it is that I know I don't really have to. Like I said--it's all permissible. It's all been accounted for, whether I sort it or not.
But *I know* not all of it is beneficial. Not all of it builds up.

I have to keep sorting, because whatever I take with me has to have a place to go in my new house. If I bring it with me, then I have to figure out somewhere to put it. One of the lessons I've learned is that our "stuff" takes up valuable space--whether it's valuable or not. The worst thing to put in a new home is your old junk.


So friends, this is me rooting for you as you hunt out the good stuff and purge all the rest.
(And celebration that one day this wanderer really will get rid of everything and start fresh.)



Pray for me as I keep plugging away at my junk. And for the 4000 mile journey ahead. And that this Texas girl survives Alaskan winters---Because y'all. Heaven, help me.

Late Bloomer

About a year and a half ago, I moved to the Austin area and raved about how it could be the best place I have ever lived.
But it wasn't. (And only a tiny portion of that can be blamed on the traffic at I-35.)
No, the let down was largely my fault.

It was so disappointing, because this place had held such promise for me.
So many things about living here were above and beyond my expectations. The family time was unparalleled. The activities were bountiful--we were never without something to do. The schools were phenomenal. The kids' coaches and activities were the best we've had to date. And I was SUPER excited that we were going to be able to spend all of this time in the heart of Texas. (Because it is God's country, of course!)


But I was so, so very lonely here. And it was soul-crushing.


For the record, I just want to say that Texans are famously friendly people for a reason.
You can engage with people all the time here. We are not shy about small talk in any fashion. We make eye contact and nod and wave at everyone. We've been known to hug people upon first introductions. Truly, if you're not careful, a conversation with the grocery store checkout lady can hold up the line for thirty minutes.
Therefore, I knew it wasn't because of the people in a state whose name literally means "Friend" that I was not able to make any.

I had a bunch of theories about why I never connected with the people in my new community:

-They weren't military families, so it was hard to establish a relationship with people who already had solid friend circles/weren't looking to let in the "new kid."
-I was "too different" from the non-military, well-off people in my neighborhood.
-It was too big, so it was hard to make a real connection with people.
-Technology. Because I'm pretty sure it is to blame for everything.
-I wasn't going to be here that long, so I didn't need to invest time in making friends.
-I didn't really need friends, because this was supposed to be dedicated family time.
-I am not nearly as fun as I think I am.
(It pretty much spiraled downward from there.)

The truth is, there was evidence to support almost every theory on my list.
-Sometimes people who have grown up in a community of friends for a long time find it difficult to reach out to the new kid. It doesn't make them bad people. It is just a skill set they don't use as often and are less practiced in.
-I was different from many of the people in my neighborhood. We were tumbleweeds in a land of live oaks with well-established roots. We were making a piece of our lives in a place where generations of families had built the entirety of theirs.
-Everything is bigger in Texas--most of all, acceptable drive times. The kids' elementary school was far. The husband's campus was far. The church was far. The grocery store was further than I was used to. Clubs and activities could be hours away. Traffic here is dumb, so far drives were made long. I was in my car ALL THE TIME here, and that's the pits, because that makes it hard to meet people.
-When I was with people I'd consider peers (soccer moms, swim moms, school moms) it was hard to reach out because everyone was looking at their phones. (Which I also did, so I didn't seem like I was staring at everyone like a weirdo.)
-Eighteen months is not long at all when you're trying to put together a stable life for your family. I needed time to put my home together and figure out all of the places our life would happen, so really the window to make friends was limited. Add to it the fact that I don't work outside of the home, so sometimes my windows for adult interaction can feel (and actually be) microscopic.
-Family time was my highest priority here. In truth, I probably overbooked us trying to make up for lost time. Occasionally I had to remind myself that our family needed to keep weekends open so my kids could have a chance to go to birthday parties or hang out with the kids on the street who would ask them to play. Sometimes I had to remind myself that my husband's favorite thing to do is go hunting alone in the woods and not have me squished right beside him 24/7.
-I have become comfortably lame in my thirties. I like to be able to hear music played at a reasonable volume. I like to beat the restaurant crowds and will eat an earlier dinner to do it. I like not spending $8 on a drink that should cost $2. I like to be home by 9:00. I like my pajamas and my bed. (And I like not being on my phone all the time, so sometimes I catch myself accidentally staring like a weirdo.)

But the last couple of months changed that for me.
I decided to sign up for a Bible study, and since I didn't know anyone there, I locked onto something I knew I liked: the snack table. I sat down next to it and watched the empty seats fill up around me. Many of the women at my table obviously already knew each other, and I began to immediately fear that I had made a mistake. I looked intensely at my plate full of beautiful breakfast casseroles and my new book and welcome packet to guard myself. Basically, I shut down before I even tried to invest.
Introductions around the table were short and sweet. I quickly learned that I had accidentally sat down at the table with many of the ladies on the leadership team. (Which made sense to me because I am consistently awkward like that.) But in spite of my initial hardness and social awkwardness, they were so sweet to me.

As the weeks drew on and I began to feel more comfortable opening up with them, I realized that the Bible study was coming to an end and I began to slip back into a state of disconnect. You see, the church was still far away from my house. I was still getting ready to move further away in a short couple of weeks. And while their kindness and fun conversation had been so good for my heart during this time, I knew any kind of friendship was going to be hard to keep up.

That's when I realized it: Though a lot of things may have been working against me, I had nobody else to blame for this lonely season but myself.

Turns out, if I took a really honest look at myself over the last year and a half, then I would have to add this theory to my list:
-Friendships take a lot of effort, and I had not been doing the work.
Sadly, there was tons and tons of evidence to support this.

The Army has long used the tagline "Bloom Where You're Planted."
It would be easy to view this as a blanket statement to mean "make the best of what you've got" or "find the good in where you are." And these are well and good interpretations, but they can leave something to be desired.
You see, anyone who has ever tried to garden before knows that it can take a lot of work to make things bloom. I can scatter random seeds in the dirt and walk away, and occasionally something might pop up. But I have a better chance of yielding fruit if I till the soil, plant the seed, fertilize it, water it, and tend to it as it grows.

Listen, sometimes you do those things and nothing grows. This happens, unfortunately.
I had some irises outside of my house last spring that produced some promising leaves but then never blossomed. For whatever reason, the conditions just weren't right. But instead of tearing them out, I left them there to see how they'd fare with one more season.
This summer in Texas was an especially wet one. Winter was actually cold. And this spring, as bluebonnets began to dot our landscape, I was greeted with beautiful purple and gold flowers. Now I only got two blossoms out of the sea of leaves I had left the year before, but it was such a beautiful sight.
It made me realize that the late blooms were worth the work and the wait.


Because I told the Bible study ladies I would, I emailed them when I found out that the Army was sending our family to Alaska. I was greeted with messages of encouragement, helpful contacts and connections, requests to see me again before I left, and promises to keep in touch. I can see these beautiful buds forming, and it gives me such hope and a fresh perspective.

It is moving season in our world again. I know that many of my military spouse friends are feeling anxious about starting this whole journey from the beginning. A lot of us are heading somewhere completely foreign to us and are worried about how we'll fare. Some of us are feeling withered because our dear friends are leaving for somewhere new while we stay behind. I know some of us are discouraged because we haven't made the connections that we hoped for after what we were sure would be a promising season. And most of us are just plain tired and wondering if it is worth the work. To dig deep. To establish roots. To weed out. To try to break through and grow. All over again.

Sweet friends, I just want to be an encouragement to you today. Don't ever stop tending the garden.
I promise you the late blooms are just as beautiful.

Spur One Another

Many moons ago, about six months after I had given birth to my first child, my husband bought me a jogging stroller.
I thought it was one of the meanest things he ever did to me.

I think he meant well by purchasing it. He had heard me complain several times about how I was finding it hard to carve out pockets of my day to work out, how I missed running on the treadmills and going to the gym, how I missed the pants my body used to fit in...
And I'm sure he missed having a partner who wasn't constantly complaining about all of those things.
So, you know, I'm pretty sure he did it for love.

It was hurtful enough that he had purchased the jogging stroller for me to use, but meaner still, he offered to go on evening runs with me and push the baby while I ran the trail. (I know. Rude.) He would spring down the trail all effortlessly with the baby happily banging her sippy cup on the sides of the stroller. Meanwhile poor Mom was bringing up the rear, huffing and puffing all by myself, watching those two get further and further away until I couldn't see them anymore. Between my gasping sounds, I would hear the distant squeal of my daughter's delight, acting like this whole situation was fun. The nerve of that baby.
It would get hard to motivate myself alone, so I would eventually slow to a walk until the two happy travelers would rejoin me on their turnaround. I would feel convicted to jog along behind them while I could see them, but I would return to my walk as soon as they faded from my sight. For several nights a week this was our routine, and aside from the part where I had to jog, I was happy with it.

Then my husband had to go and ruin it by expecting more from me. Gah!

I distinctly remember the day I really did feel like he was being mean to me. He and the baby started pulling out in front of me as they always did, and I followed well behind them---waiting for them to fall out of my view so I could run for fifty more feet and then quit.
But they never faded out of sight. In fact, my husband kept looking back at me and adjusting his speed to make sure I was keeping up.
Eventually, he turned around and started pushing the stroller backwards to watch me!

I hollered up at him, "Don't worry about me. Go on ahead."
But he didn't turn around! Instead, he hollered back at me,
"If I can do it backwards, you can do it forward!"

NO! What was he doing?!
He knew I was too proud to quit jogging if he was watching me so I trudged on and on. It was awful. I watched him push that stroller backwards up a hill as I struggled behind him. I wheezed. I griped. I eventually got sick on the side of the trail. I cried. He and the baby finished the rest of the walk beside me without any remark or condemnation.

But oh, once I caught my breath, I SURE HAD SOME WORDS.

"You're pushing me too hard! You shouldn't expect me to keep up with you, and you can't treat me like a soldier!!" I chided him.
I expected an apology. I didn't get one. He simply said, "Then you can't quit. You can slow down. Just don't stop."

My husband kept right on pushing that stroller for me through the years. He pushed two babies right next to me as I ran my very first race--the four of us finishing 8k together in 40 minutes. He carted us all out of town and brought those babies to hug their mama as I finished my first half-marathon. Now we shuttle our babies to school and go on morning runs together. He can still smoke me on the trail, always fading fast from my sights--yet he turns around backwards to check on me every now and then, because he knows it pushes me.
And after all these years that trick still works, because I don't want him to see me stop.

The other day as I lagged behind him, I thought about how the Bible tells us to "spur one another on toward love and good deeds" (Hebrews 10:24). I often like to think of myself as a good encourager, pushing my people on with a message of hope and grace. And while this is good and necessary, it is not the only way. Some situations call for spurs.

I imagine a horse likes to be motivated by a treat. Rewards make them feel good.
And I also figure that a horse is rightly motivated by a bit. Sure, it's probably annoying to be told where to go with a little tug. But if they follow along, then the bit releases and they can do what they want.
I'd bet that a horse does't love to be motivated by spurs. They're sharp and they dig.

We're not all that different from horses in this way, but each motivator has its purpose and its place--and all methods are necessary for us to perform our best.

The problem with only using a reward-motivator is that sometimes rewards don't come right away, so we get discouraged and stop.
The problem with a "bit" is that it only motivates you if someone is right there pulling on it--I don't have to do anything I don't want to when I'm all by myself.
Spurs can seem cruel in the moment, but the result is immediate and the tender feeling keeps you moving for some time afterward.

I think we are hesitant to "spur" each other because we think that being tough also makes you mean. This isn't always true.
You see, I thought my husband was being harsh, but it turns out that his "spurring" was actually one of the kindest things he's ever done for me. I may not have liked the way that it felt in the moment, but it turns out that nothing at that time was going to motivate me as much as a kick in the butt. And the reason his spurring has had such a lasting impact on me is because it was done in love.He didn't push me for any other reason but to help me move forward. It's why, after the kick, he ran beside me. When cowboys spur a horse, they intend to come along for the ride too.

I don't know if my husband quite knew what he was setting off when he gave me the kick, but I thank God he's still hanging on.

I'm also glad he's agreed to join me in my next crazy scheme: running the beautiful 13.1 trail by my house for no other reason than to say I bested it. (I think I'll call it the "Half Out of My Mind.") :)

Be sure to thank your cowboys, friends. (And may we be as tough as them if ever we are called.)

Dirty Windows

Years ago I met a fellow Aggie and Army wife, and through the beauty of social media we were able to remain connected even though our season of contact had been brief. She wrote a gratitude blog in which she listed out things that she was thankful for at the end of each day, every day for an entire year. (I have no idea if it is even still active.) Some of her posts were lengthy entries and some of them were tiny blurbs. Some of the items she listed were profound happenings and some of them were daily blessings. Still others were things often overlooked that just happened to speak to her heart that day.

One of the things she had written all those years ago came back to my memory this week. It was a shorter entry, and in it she expressed her gratitude for clean windows. (Shout out to the other ladies who get all philosophical doing house chores. We are a fun breed.)
The gist--and perhaps even the entirety of her message was this: sometimes it isn't until you clean your glass that you realize how dirty you'd let it become first place. You only thought you were looking out at a clear picture before because your eyes had adjusted to the dirt. Cleaning the windows reveals all the things you had been missing that you didn't even realize you were.

(Clearly, the girl was talking about much more than windows...)

This past week I underwent laser eye surgery. I've had corrective lenses since I was fourteen, so I've been seeing through contacts and glasses for the better half of my life. It honestly wasn't until this past year that they've really started bothering me, but the annoyance came upon me in full force. I realized hundreds of dollars too late in the game that only certain girls look hip and trendy in glasses, while the rest of us look like...well, not those girls. Therefore, my glasses were for emergency use only and I lived in contacts (which worked until it didn't.)
Maybe it is because we had more time to play and travel these past 18 months, but I recently discovered that contacts are also the devil. Contact solution doesn't travel well at all. I was losing contacts on bathrooms floors and in campgrounds. I looked like I had turrets every time I went to a water park and got splashed. Contacts were *RIPPING IN TWO INSIDE MY EYE WHILE I WAS DRIVING!*
Had I always lived like this and never noticed it?!?

I got the call from my eye doctor to schedule an exam, and she sweetly let me know that my insurance now only covered this service every other year.
So I sweetly laughed in her face and asked her to MAKE IT ALL STOP, MAN!!!

And so here we are--Three awful weeks where I was only allowed to wear my stupid glasses, maybe ten whole minutes of laser zaps to my eyeballs, and a million and twenty eye drops later.

And guess what? I can't see for beans.

It turns out that the specific problem with my vision made me a better candidate for PRK or LASEK. (I have no idea which one of those I got. I probably should care more about that but I don't. Just let me live.)
These procedures either remove or roll back the top section of the eye before your vision is corrected, and then a bandage (aka another contact...gah!) is placed on your eye while that top layer heals. This actually makes your vision weaker in the initial stages, but then it keeps getting better and better with time.
I get my bandages off tomorrow. I originally thought that would be the light at the end of the tunnel for this process, but I still wear sunglasses inside at night---so if this is the light, then it's burning me. The last time I saw the doc he told me that my vision might still be blurry after this first week and perhaps even worse than they were at the post-op. And friends, I'm thinking I'm one of the lucky winners who will indeed be worse.
If I chose to focus on this specific moment, everything about this situation would make it appear that I've been suckered into a bad choice.
So I choose not to focus on the fuzz of this exact moment, but on the sharper picture that's been promised ahead.


All this sitting around inside my house with my sunglasses on, pondering dirty windows and vision and fuzz, also got me thinking about someone else whose vision was muddied before they could see clearly. (Literally.)
John 9 introduces us to a man blind since birth. And Jesus, responding to his need, spits in the dirt and rubs mud onto the man's blind eyes. "Go wash," Jesus said. And when the man did, he could see.
This story confused me for so long. Jesus could have spoken and the man would have been healed. The man could have touched Jesus, believing, and received sight. Jesus could have merely willed it and it would have been so. Why did He spit in the dirt and put mud on this man's eyes??
It's because that man needed to wash more than he needed to see.

Friends, we don't have to be able to see it to know that there's mud on our eyes.

Looking past dirt takes some adjustments, to be sure. But once mastered, we get so good at looking through the dirt that we forget it's there, hiding the better picture.
Looking through clean glass takes real effort and persistence. A good cleaning is always worthwhile and met with reward, but it's a continual process. No matter how hard you scrub, the dirt is going to come back because dirt is a part of the earth we live on. It is simply going to get kicked up on our windows from time to time. Our choices will always ever be to adjust and look past it, or to wash it off. And there's a sharper, better picture at the end of only one of those options.

I say all this to you not as a profession of someone squeaky clean, but as someone who has made adjustments for far too long and has to wipe off the dirt again and again and again. Sometimes I worry that I smudge and streak more than I clean--either remnants of the massive dirt piles or evidence of the sloppy housekeeper.

But even so, I am so thankful for moments of pure grace when I can see something a little clearer than I did before.
(Even if, for now, it's through my sunglasses in the dark.)

1 Corinthians 13:12 (KJV)
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.


May we all help each other through the fuzz, in Love.

The Little House on Mansion Street

Our family moved to the burbs outside of Austin, TX, last December. We don't like to brag about it a whole lot, but I'm pretty sure we are the house-finding ninjas of the Army. Outside of our very first PCS, (Army slang for "move,") we have never lived in a neighborhood or house that I wouldn't move back to. This house is no exception.

We found it completely by accident after being let down by a sneaky realtor. One of my favorite kinds of blessings are the ones that happen immediately after you have been let down. I feel like it's God's way of saying, "I see you, I'm here, and I haven't gone anywhere."
After falling in love with and losing the sneaky realtor's house, I was determined to find another house in the same area. The only problem was, none of the listings were in our government-employee price range. (Apparently those lovely Californians had brought their home prices with them when they came to Texas.)
But then my husband found it, all available and vacant, next to the two most beautiful words that can be seen next to a house listing: "price reduced." It was a couple of miles past the original neighborhood I was ogling, but it was off the same main access road and had the same awesome school ratings. We booked the viewing, and I held my breath.

The first time we turned down the road on my street, I thought we were lost. Each custom home was nicely situated on 3 and 4 and 5 acre lots, and the further down you drove, the more extravagant they got. My husband and I just looked at each other.
"Are you sure you're on the right street?" I asked.
"The GPS lady says I am," he answered.

We drove about a mile down, passing a beautiful, stately home separated from the street by a private pond (or maybe a moat??) and then we saw it; our sweet little 3 bedroom 2 bathroom house, built in 1979--still basking in much of her linoleum and wallpapered glory. It has a sunken living room and the tiniest master bathroom you've ever seen and a sad, dreary brown door.

I truly loved it.

As we toured the house and asked questions, we happened to notice some new construction on the lot next door. It turned out that a well-off custom pool and home contractor for the area had decided to build his dream home in that spot. So we would be the little house between the castle with a moat and the 6,500 sq. ft. looker with a dream pool.

Oh man! Where do we sign?!

For a while it was really amusing to me that we were the regular Joes where all the Joneses were. Their kids would drive their golf carts and motorized scooters down the street, while we would have a contest with our kids in the front yard using the three-year-old hula hoop I had bought on clearance for two bucks. We would take family walks in the evening and swoon over two to three miles-worth of beautiful homes and cars and yards and dogs. (Seriously, one of our neighbors said he spent thousands of dollars on each of his rare breed of dog. He had THREE of them!) I always enjoyed looking at all of these treasures, but it was enough for me just to look at them--while I appreciated the beauty that was in those things, I never felt the pull to have them for myself.

But you know what the enemy does to your heart whenever it's content? It's so small and seemingly innocent, you might not even notice it's happening. He makes you aware that other things are attainable. It's not that you are immediately ungrateful for the things you do have, but you start to develop this lingering hope of what you might have someday. And then, ever so subtly...

what you have < what you hope to have. Eventually, the things you do have no longer seem good enough. Sure, they were perfectly good and amusing before, but this other thing might be better. It sure looks better.

That's how you covet. That's how he can take a sweet contentment, the slightest hope for blessings and favor--something we are promised in the LORD!--and corrupt it, turning it into sin.

He's done this from the very beginning, friends.

"Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

(Genesis 3:1-7 NIV)

I used to pride myself on the fact that I was never much of a material girl. My parents didn't have a lot of money growing up, and so I didn't put a lot of stock on things. Then I went to college where EVERYBODY is poor. Then, I married a man in the Army, where we all make modest amounts of money and any nice thing you DO have gets broken during a move anyway.
People, this is the first time I have ever lived anywhere or known anyone who was able to have these beautiful things. And it turns out, after all this time of thinking I was above it, I am not immune.

No one is.

So how do we overcome it?

We seek our contentment from God and God alone. Which is like the easiest sounding BUT MOST EASY TO SCREW UP THING EVER.
It was literally our first sin. That is why it is the first of the Ten Commandments: You shall have NO other Gods before me. Know what the last one is? Thou shalt not covet.
Coincidence? I think not.
It is SO important, SO critical, SO easy to slip up on, that He bookends it. First, LOVE ME FIRST. Last, DESIRE NO THING OVER ME.

Yesterday, I started a Bible Study at my new church on Tim Keller's "Counterfeit Gods". Basically, I am only ten pages into this book and AM RUINED FOREVER. As I entered the room, I was all like, "Man, I wonder what kind of small, little bit of something that's not Jesus is hiding under the surface here" and a single hour later, God was all "YOU BEAUTIFUL IDIOT! YOU LIKE THE THINGS!"
Y'all. Turns out I like the things.

So here I am, and here is where I'm at. I won't stay here, though. One day, in the future, I really will be over all of these worldly things. But that's not today.
Pray for me. Pray for you. Pray for all of us.

"Than any comfort, Jesus is better--make my heart believe.
More than all riches, Jesus is better--make my heart believe.
Our souls declaring, Jesus is better--make my heart believe.
Our song eternal, Jesus is better--make my heart believe."


(Also, feel free to come visit me anytime. I'm the little fella between all the giant mansions.)

Tough Breaks

I'm just going to say some things here that probably won't make me sound like Mom of the Year. In fact, I'm not even sure that "good moms" are supposed to admit these things to people, but here it goes...

I love back-to-school time. A lot.

I love having my home to myself. I love every blissful moment of quiet. The empty-house hours of 7am to 3pm are MY JAM.
While I do enjoy spending every waking minute with my kids, doing so sure can make it hard to get other things done (and therefore, they usually don't.)

There are mothers who seem to thrive in the summertime. They claim that they love every minute of summer and that it goes by too fast. They weep when their children stroll through the front doors of school, and they anxiously count down the minutes until their children's return.

Let me just say, I absolutely love those moms. I totally understand most of the things that they say.

I just am not one of them.

Even when my kids were small, I looked forward to them being old enough to go to school. I didn't look forward to them growing up super fast. I didn't look forward to them not needing me as much. I didn't even necessarily look forward to them being away from me.
I just looked forward to a time when I could be productive without feeling so scattered. I looked forward to a time when I could complete tasks without pre-school shows playing noisily in the background. I looked forward to being able to finish a project without being interrupted every few minutes by cries or spills or "potty emergencies."

Then, in what seemed like the blink of an eye, it happened. Both of my kids were in school, and I was living the dream.
I have to admit, this whole school-aged kid thing is pretty much as sweet a gig as I figured it would be.

This is certainly not to say that I don't look forward to summertime, or summer vacations, or all of the precious memories we are sure to make. Those sweet moments are not lost on me--no no!

In fact, this summer was an incredibly special time for my family, (and there's not any way to write that sentence and not have it be a huge understatement.) Because of my husband's unique "job" right now, we got to spend the entire summer together. No deployments, no training exercises, no all-day workdays, no late nights, no work emergencies, no middle-of-the-night phone calls. Just us, every day. Our family had worked and sacrificed so much for this time, and I felt like we had totally earned this break.
We literally put all other responsibilities aside. Togetherness was the #1 priority. This summer was an absolute treat, and I was so thankful to have been given that time.

And yet, I still was ready for it to be over and for school to start. It is inevitable with me. Sometime between July and August, I feel a strong sense of longing for backpacks and carpools and extracurricular activities and normalcy. I felt so bad about it--like maybe something was wrong with me. One night as I sat around the family calendar and pondered how on earth we were going to entertain ourselves for the X remaining days until everyone went back to school, I felt a nudge in my soul. Maybe I'm not wrong to feel this way, because we're not made for summer breaks and endless leisure and no responsibilities.
We were made for the harvest.

For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.
1 Corinthians 3:9

Breaks are absolutely necessary and encouraged. My children needed this time with their dad; I know that. My husband needed this time with us. My heart needed this season of togetherness for us.
And then I needed to get back to work.

You see, I have been guilty of letting my fields lie fallow all summer. I took the term "summer break" too literally. I took breaks from working out like I should have. I took breaks from keeping up with housework like I should have. I took breaks from cooking my family proper meals like I should have. I took breaks from doing my morning Bible studies like I should have.

I put my personal projects and my tasks on hold so I could hold my babies; and while I am not for one hot minute saying that is a bad thing, I've got to tell you, moms---that is only one of our jobs!
Our babies will grow up to be fellow workers, too.

They need to see us relishing in our work and not just yearning for our breaks.

((Insert the sound of truth bombs exploding everywhere.))

We live in a world that sings "Summertime and the livin' is easy," but we serve a God that made the summertime; and He says "Wake up and look around! The fields are already ripe for harvest.."

Break time is over, thank goodness. The work is here. I am ready for it, because I was born for it. We all were, my friends.

Hooray for back-to-school. Hooray for getting back to business.