A Lesson

So, I guess there is nothing I can really do to further this process along, so I'm back!

Today my daughter came home with an action figure - it looked like "Skeletor" with brown fur and red eyes that light up...fangs too and long sharp looking claws. She sat down and dumped her little people out and began to play with them all together. The action figure was pushing the baby in the stroller, and playing "camping" with the other little girls and their mommies and daddies.

I said, "Mayah, you don't want to play with him, he's scary!"

She turned around and looked at me, perplexed, and said, "Mommy, he's not scary, he's nice!"

What a lesson I learned today from a 2 yr old.

Silent Retreat

....that is what I'm dreaming of....

I'll probably be missing in action for a while.

Our house went on the market today - it is showing tomorrow for the first time! Gonna have to pick up all of those dirty diapers off of the floor and wash the dishes...maybe dust and put away the strollers and bouncers and swings and boppies and every other baby apparatus. Gonna have to find somewhere to go while they show the house. I don't think it will be warm enough to go to the park...and everywhere else in this town is "smoking," which would be fine if not for a 5 month old baby. If I still smoked, I'd be puffing one right now. Instead I've eaten a whole box of girl scout cookies. And, I'm cracking open a bottle of wine...

We found out today that Luke will be starting in Cinci on May first...

So. So. So.

We have one month to do the impossible:
- finish the remodeling project we started in the bathroom a year ago
- sell our house in a poor market
- buy a house
- move
- go to TX before my sister moves to Hawaii so we can see my new nephew at least once in our lives

So....in between all of this, we've discovered an enlarging lymph node on Sam's neck that is not going away as it should. We've also got to find a pediatric endcrinologist in Cinci to follow his thyroid progress...and decide if we are going to live in temporary housing in Cinci until our house sells here or if the three of us (me and the kids) will leave Luke in Cinci and stay in Falls City while he works until the house sells...or if we are going to go to TX until the house sells so we can be there when my sister gets there anyway and I will have some emotional support. It all hinges on what temporary housing is, and if they will let us bring our pets. So, what are we going to do with our pets? What if temporary housing is an extended stay hotel? 2 cats, a 2 yr old, a 5 month old, and 2 adults. What fun! Oh, yeah...the house next door is for sale. the house across the street is for sale too. 2 streets over there are 2 more homes for sale ;) one block to the north of us, there are also 2 homes for sale.

Oh, God! Please cause the house to sell to the people who are looking at it tomorrow!!! Maybe they'll just want to re-do the bathroom themselves :) Just convince me that miracles still do happen.

Tonight I am really struggling with the fear that someone will harm my children...I know I need to stop watching the news. It's all come into focus lately as we prepare to move from our tiny, safe (yet all too weird) town into a larger city. I'm afraid! And as I pour my fears out to God, I am realizing that I don't trust Him to take care of my family...mostly because He has never promised me that He would. He has never said things will be happy all of the time, so how do I get over this fear? My thoughts are all over the place...I don't think I'll ever understand how one person could intentionally harm another in a violent way...I'm so sensitive. Not that I've never ever caused someone harm unintentionally...maybe I think too highly of myself...okay back to the struggle of trust. Why should I trust God to protect my children? What if He doesn't? If horrible things happen every where we look, what makes me or my family any less likely a candidate? Why would He choose to protect us and not someone else who needs protection?

Okay...the ambien just kicked in.
going to bedd hopefully

Just received "messy spirituality" by yaconelli...thank you vicki!

For me, it is a little harder to read than "So you don't want to go to church anymore?" but it is really good so far. Thought I would share a quote that I have kept going back to...one that I really like:

"One of my favorite Peanuts cartoons starts with Lucy at her five-cent psychology booth, where Charlie Brown has stopped for advice about life.

'Life is like a deck chair, Charlie,' she says. 'On the cruise ship of life, some people place their deck chair at the rear of the ship so they can see where they've been. Others place their deck chair at the front of the ship so they can see where they're going.'

The good "doctor" looks at her puzzled client and asks, 'Which way is your deck chair facing?'

Without hesitating, Charlie replies glumly, 'I can't even get my deck chair unfolded.'

Charlie and I are soul mates."

I have enjoyed this so much because learning to accept that my "ugliness" and awkwardness and my questions and my faulty logic and all of me that is imperfect is OKAY is just hard. I'm just at the beginning of this...the very tip of the iceberg...but when I begin to think about it, I begin to think about others differently also...and seem to give a lot more grace where I would not have before.

Oh...it is so against my whole lifestyle to be confrontational. I was raised to never ever ever be a problem, to always make people feel good, and to take on the responsibility or fault of anything that goes wrong. Also, that my self worth comes from others and their opinions of me, whether they are true or false. In this teaching, I also gained the very important knowledge on how to manipulate people, give guilt trips...you know, the things you observe...if you are being manipulated into feeling guilty all of the time, into never opening your mouth, then you learn to do the manipulating also. Just like if you hit your kids for hitting others...then, you are really teaching them it's okay to hit others. And so, I am "co-dependent" and with that comes being "manipulative." Pretty, huh?

I guess that God is wanting me to stop the madness. And it's so hard. I am second guessing myself at every step. I am really struggling with setting healthy boundaries and sticking with them...I am struggling with the idea that Jesus's blood covers all sin, and that is translating in my mind into guilt over keeping my boundaries (that seems like such a technical/counselor term, eh? I don't know what else to call it right now). It just is the most awful thing for someone to be mad at me!!! I hate it. I want everyone to like me and to be happy with me...and the fact that I am actually the one to cause the so-called problem is just eating me! It would just be so much easier to let people walk all over me and not confront the line that they step over. But, that is stepping away from the truth, stepping over the line for myself. But THAT IS SIN! Just because it looks different than what we think it should....

I am really just rambling, trying to sort things out in my mind. Maybe I've had too much coffee.

New Sins

http://green.yahoo.com/news/nm/20080310/hl_nm/pope_sins_dc.html

Thought this was interesting...wonder what of the concept of personal conviction, decisions, morals, etc... ? Does the catholic church just think that everyone is too dumb to listen to their conscience with regards to "sin"? We are all robots who have to be programmed on what to do and what not to do. Interesting...that the Catholic church believes that they actually get to decide what is a sin and what is not!

Moving Again...

We found out yesterday that we are moving to Cincinnati, Oh. Part of me is SO excited to get out of Falls City...to be able to actually buy groceries in the town I live in, to go out to eat without having to drive an hour...to perhaps go to a movie once in a while! Maybe a coffee shop!!! I bet we can actually get wireless internet there :)

The other part of me is wilting...wondering if I'm up for starting over again...making new friends, pulling all of our stuff out of boxes, arranging it just so, hanging curtains, putting the crib together, the clothes back into the drawers...hanging pictures on the walls. Mostly, making new friends. I've discovered lately that I am a social retard. I am also co-dependent. Aren't we all? I am so afraid of having to begin all over again, I'm afraid I'm going to hole up with my 2 little ones and just be a hermit.

I cried when we left Galveston...it was the best and worst place we've lived. I cried when we left Minneapolis...it was an amazing place to live. I don't think I'll cry when we leave Falls City, NE (the butthole of America), but I might cry when we get to Cincinnati. I'm just a little stressed out about how life in a new city with a 2 yr old and a 4 month old will be when I don't know anyone or anything about the city. I kind of wish we had a welcoming committee assigned to us by my husband's company...

On the brighter side...I may be able to finally go back to school, and we will be able to do things we've missed for a while, and maybe we'll find a house church...or a place where we have a little bit more in common with others than here. I just posted a comment on a friend's blog - she's moving to India! I told her it was like God just grabbed her hand and said, "Let's jump into that deep scary ocean together!" Maybe He's doing that with me too.