2014 Was An Audacious Year!

"It's only when we have nothing else to hold onto that we're willing to hold onto something very audacious and scary." ~Sonia Johnson

[I borrowed this idea from Dan Pearce's Single Dad Laughing's post here with permission]
 
I never imagined after the rough year I had in 2013 that 2014 could be so amazing.  I mean, it had to be better - once you hit rock bottom, there's only one way to go.  But it surpassed even my wildest imagination!

It was difficult to start the year off with the pounds I had put back on, but I was bound and determined that I was going to take them off for good this year.  I set my goal high - go big or go home, right? - to lose 100 pounds.  Well, I beat it by a few and I can't tell you how amazing I feel.  I haven't been this small since college.  I attribute it to eating clean which was the best lifestyle change I could have ever made.

I also started the year off with a bang in my running.  I ran a 5k every other week to train for the half-marathons.  My first was in April.  I was afraid I wouldn't finish, but I did it in 3 1/2 hours which beat my expectations by 30 minutes.  I not only did one Warrior Dash, but two and ran the second half in October.  My target was to run 365 miles in 2014, but I blew past that and hit 500.  Needless to say I went through several pairs of shoes.

I finally got the house finished and rented out.  This put us on a great start to getting out of debt.  By September my student loans were paid off and I started saving for a down payment on a house.  We should finally be in our own early in 2015.  I know the kids are going to love that!

After a rocky end to 2013, work has been great!  Although I love my job, my blog has taken off to a point that I'm finally bringing in some good income.  I finally started on a book that was almost finished by the end of NaNoWriMo.  I'm putting on the final touches and I can't wait for y'all to read it.  

God placed several things on my heart for this year and one of those was for homeless ministries.  I got involved with a great group of people and we have helped countless people get off the streets.  My good friend Oscar has been invaluable to showing us the true needs of those living in the cold.  My blessings have been more than I ever could have given.

I finally listened and started a children's choir at church.  Through this, we have had a number of families come to know Jesus.  I love to see the word of God shine through these beautiful faces.

One of my most cherished and fun goals this year was to get a Neighbor's Table.  I don't have my house yet, but we were able to get a rental with a big enough yard to put one in.  We invited anyone that could come for Thanksgiving and Christmas to join us at this amazing table and share what community looks like.  Those are memories I will never forget! 

The kids and I took several vacations this year.  We all went to Texas to visit their best friend Ishita and their brother Addison.  It was great finally meeting Alex and Olivia in person!  We swung by Oklahoma on the way and got to meet up with a lot of awesome dreamers.  We also went to our favorite place on Earth - Emerald Isle - with our favorite people on Earth.  

I even snuck away for a few trips of my own.  The first was to the Storyline Conference in San Diego where I got to meet Jon Acuff and Bob Goff in person.  These are two of the people who had such an incredible impact on my healing and moving forward.  I'm in the middle of packing for my second trip - I'm headed to Europe to spend the rest of the holidays with one of my good friends from college.

All in all, I'd have to say it was an amazing year.  What a turnaround from depression and rock bottom a year and a half ago.  It's incredible the healing God brought me and the life he was preparing me for.  I can't wait to see what 2015 has in store!

Christmas Dinner for One

"I am not alone at all, I thought.  I was never alone at all.  And that, of course, is the message of Christmas.  We are never alone.  Not when the night is darkest, the wind coldest, the world seemingly most indifferent.  For this is still the time God chooses." ~Taylor Caldwell

I realized today that this is the first Christmas Eve I have ever been alone.  Truly alone.  In my entire life.  No last minute shopping.  No visiting 10 houses before midnight.  No kids trying to peek at presents under the tree. 

I am sitting here enjoying the ham Wayne's mom sent home with me.  I threw together some other stuff I had in the cupboards and poured a glass of wine.  I am singing along to Christmas music and catching up on all the well-wishes.

I may be sitting here alone in a quiet apartment with cats resting under the tree, but I'm not really alone.  I am spending it I am reveling in amazement at the people God brought into my life.  I am looking at dozens upon dozens of cards hanging on my wall from beautiful people all over the world.  I am gazing at the handmade ornaments my new friends have made lovingly and sent for an ornament exchange.  I see the bottom of the tree void of any boxes.  The gifts I received can't be placed in a box or a bag.  They can't be bought nor returned.  

This year I've received an outpouring of love completely unimaginable.  I've been giving the gift of friendship from friends both old and new.  I've been given laughter and even a few tears but always with a shoulder to cry on.  I have found out that I don't always have to be strong but can be weak and it's still OK.  I've even found a little bit of Christmas magic.  But most of all, I have found peace.  Peace within myself.  Peace with my situation.  Peace that I can sit here in the quiet and know that I am not alone and I never have been.

So tonight, I toast my glass of wine to you whether you are visiting with family and friends or sitting alone in the quiet like me.  I hope that amongst the piles of boxes and wrapping paper you are able to find the gifts that really matter the most!  I love you all and I wish you the merriest of Christmases!

Grieving No More

"The risk of love is loss, and the price of loss is grief -
But the pain of grief is only a shadow
When compared with the pain of never risking love."
~Hilary Stanton Zunin

A friend of mine reminded me it was OK to grieve.  But the thing is, I have grieved for over half a year.  Most of 2013 wasted trying to get back what I lost.  I grieved for a relationship that is no more.  The "we" that we were is gone; never to return no matter how many tears I shed or how many hours on my knees I spent praying.  I grieved for the person I was.  A huge part of me is gone.  The part of me that believed in Christmas magic and happily ever after.  The person that would watch sappy Hallmark movies with tears in her eyes knowing that I had found my fairy tale and it was even better than the movies.  I grieved for the Olan Mills family pictures that would never be.  The family cookouts and birthday parties and the white picket fence.

But I'm done grieving.  I'm not going to spend the last month of this crappy year crying.  I don't know that I'm ready to move forward in any way yet, but I can't live in the past any longer.  Nothing I can do could bring back my life as I knew it before June.  It took something as a new pair of jeans to finally give me the closure I needed.  It took someone reminding me that if I didn't forgive, it was one of the worst sins I could commit because God gives me his mercy every day.

And I forgave.  Wayne for not loving me the way I needed and for walking out of my life.  The family members that turned their backs on me when I needed them the most.  But most of all - I forgave myself.  For putting my heart and soul into a man that threw it away.  For not trusting that God had a bigger plan for me and wasn't ready to unveil it yet.  For not seeing the precious gifts I had in my children.  For not cherishing the absolutely incredible friends I still have and the blessed angels that have come into my life since then. 

So, I don't shed tears for the past anymore.  I don't have dreams for the future.  What I have is the knowledge of a promise that God will make this all work out in the end.  Whether it's because of destiny or just because I plowed away at it until it worked.  I can't say I even have hope.  But I have prayers.  And I know that somehow, someway those are going to get to the big man and He's going to answer in His own way.  Until then, I'm going to continue to be still and try to hear whatever message I am supposed to be getting from all of this.  And maybe - just maybe - a stray Christmas snowflake will hold just enough Christmas magic to bring the spark back again.

It was meant to be...

“Fate is never fair. You are caught in a current much stronger than you are; struggle against it and you'll drown not just yourself but those who try to save you. Swim with it. and you'll survive”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes

"It was meant to be..."  My daughter told me this tonight.  If I had a dollar for every time I heard a well-meaning person tell me this, at least half my troubles would disappear.

The first time I really remember hearing it was when I lost the baby.  Five years of trying and all my hopes were wrenched out of me along with her body.  I always think of her as a girl although I will never know as I was only twelve weeks along.  "There was probably something wrong with it, so it's probably for the best" one friend said.  "Everything happens for a reason" said another.   So many people with such good intentions.  Little did they know that every time felt like another stab to my soul.  "God has a purpose, so this is meant to be" said a third.  There - they pulled out the God card.  This couldn't just be an accident.  God caused it to happen so that makes everything OK.  Like it would take some of the pain out of the situation somehow if I knew that God wanted me to lose my baby.  

Lately I have heard these "words of encouragement" entirely too much since Wayne left.  What makes it so much harder for me is knowing that God brought him into my life.  Well, that's what we always told each other.  If this is true, than God ripped him right out of it as well.  I've been struggling with this thought for months.  Why would he take him out of my life?  Am I being punished for something I did?  I must have some really bad karma coming back my way.  Is he being punished?  I think a large part of my depression stems from just not understanding this.  I look for logic in everything and this time there just doesn't seem to be any.

I've been reading a lot of books in my journey to heal and I'm beginning to realize that God probably isn't overly concerned with who I date or marry.  I'm not sure He even has a hand in matchmaking at all.  I think He essentially wants us to be happy and He wants us to be with a certain type of person so we can do amazing things to glorify Him.  If I chose Joe or Tom or Larry, as long as we do what's right and look upwards, God's going to be happy.  

If I look at the alternative, it's almost devastating.  I mean - if all of this pain was meant to be than God is really, really mad at me.  And every single time something bad happens to me I must deserve it.  I'm not perfect by any means, but I can't believe that I have been that bad. 

So, for now, I'm going to try to convince myself that this year just simply sucked.  Not because God wanted it to.  Or because I did something wrong.  It just did.  And someday, hopefully soon, the suckiness will start blowing away and life will get better again.  And I do believe God will very much be a part of the good.  But not because He thinks I deserve it finally.  But because I let Him be.  That is the one thing I can control.

Faith Revisited

"Faith isn't faith until it's all you're holding on to" ~Patrick Overton

Y'all know I've had a pretty crappy summer.  My fall isn't looking so hot yet either.  All of this has made me take a hard look back and evaluate the last three years.  

Three years ago I moved from the city I had lived in my entire adult life back home.  I quit the job I had for 17 years and I came without a job.  I moved with the job market the worst it had been since I graduated from high school to one of the cities with the least amount of potential jobs.  I packed up three kids and drove 10 hours away from everything that I knew to a city I could barely remember.  I leapt with both feet and no net knowing that God would carry us.

And He did.  I was filled with faith

Until this year.  This year, everything we had built up started crashing down.  The future we had built was ripped away.  Our support system virtually disappeared.  Our world as we knew it was turned upside down overnight.

I've spent the better part of 4 months trying to recover.  The first month just trying to find my footing.  The second month trying to crawl out of the hole I had fallen so deeply into.  The third month just being.  Being still.  Being patient.  Being a mom and an employee and attempting to be a functioning human being.  This last month I have tried to heal and figure out where to move forward. 

Now, as I'm trying to put the pieces back together, I'm having a hard time finding the path.  Every step I take seems like it's backwards.  Doors are slamming in my face left and right.  I'm a do-er, and everything I do seems to be fraught with problems.  I'm not sure at all if I'm doing this right or even if I should be doing it.

I've lost my faith.

When I moved back, faith was easy.  I had my 401k money in the bank.  No matter what, we were going to be taken care of.  My relationship with my family was good.  We had places to go if everything else failed.  The future was easy because we believed.  We just knew it was all going to turn out OK.

Now that we have been let down by people that we never expected to hurt us, faith is much harder to come by.  It's so much harder to trust when you expect to be hurt again.  It's harder to believe because dreams don't always come true.  It's harder to stick your neck out when time and time again you bang your head against another closed door.

But I realized yesterday that I am exactly where I need to be right now.  God said "Yeah, it was easy to have faith when you had everything.  Now I want you to have it when you have lost everything.  Show me just how faithful you are."  Wow.  Yeah.  I got that message loud and clear.  I have to believe that even if I lose what little we have left, He is still going to take care of us.  He will provide, even if it's not what I expect.

So,  now I will have to test just how much faith I have in God.  I will have to completely open myself up to being vulnerable and trust in whatever plans He has for our future.  I have to quit trying to be in control and let God take the wheel - He has a much better driving record anyways.  I need to go back to that cliff now that my eyes have been opened and I can see just how far away the bottom is and leap again.  No safety net.  No way to know if He will catch me this time.  It's all I have left to hold on to.  Well, here I go...

P.S.  This is the original Faith post just over three years ago.

Unwanted

Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty." ~Mother Theresa

This week marks the third anniversary of my divorce.  It doesn't quite feel right to celebrate the ending of a covenant such as that.  Granted, it was necessary and the right move for us, but the thought of this makes me sad.

Yesterday I saw that a past love changed his status update to engaged.  That guy that was never going to get married again.  The one who brought me out of such a dark time.  I'm truly happy for him though.  That means he's healed.  He figured out how to finally love himself so he can now love someone else.

And last night I listened to the last voicemail I got from Wayne.  At the end of it he said "I love you."  Five days later he left.  I still can't figure out how this happened.  My love didn't fade - it's still as strong today as it was four months ago.  Broken and battered, but still there.  

But it's unwelcome.  

Unwanted.  

And that makes me feel unwanted.  

Unwanted.  Ouch.  Yeah... a failed marriage.  A discarded love.  A forgotten heart simply left behind.  They walked away and just left me standing there.

This takes me back to the nightmare class they called gym.  On dodge ball (AKA the cruelest game ever) day.  The worst.  The two coolest people got picked to be team captains.  Then they chose their friends: the popular kids; the athletic ones.  They went through the lines and, one by one, everyone is picked.  All I could do was pray that I wouldn't be last.  I mean, I had to be just a little bit better, a little cooler, than that kid at the end.  Every once in a while I ended up being that kid and it sucked.

Today I feel like that kid.  

I'm the last one in line.  

All the other kids have found a team.  

I am standing alone on the wall wishing I could fade into the cold cinder blocks. 

Now I get to Jesus-juke you.  Because it's OK that I'm last.  It doesn't matter that the cool kids didn't pick me.  I'm not the most popular.  I'm not the most athletic or the prettiest or even the most pulled together (far from it).  But there's one who chose me despite all of this and possibly because of it.  Jesus chose me.  He died on the cross for me.  He took every poke of that thorny crown and every swing of the hammer that forced the nails through his skin.  He did all that for me.  Because He loved me that much.  How could I let the fact that it didn't work with these guys take away from all of that?  

So, it doesn't matter that my ex and I couldn't work it out.  It doesn't matter that someone could just walk away.  What matters is that the love I've been given is so much greater than all of this.  And the love I have to give is so much greater than this.  And I know that someone very special is still waiting out there for me. 

Understanding

"The way Signor Brasini stopped, turned to his wife, put his big farmer's hands out and caressed her face.  Pulled her close to him and kissed her just like in the films.  He kissed her for a long time and then looked at her and smiled… And when I saw all that, I knew that their way would be my way.  Their way, not my father's...way - their way was how I wanted my life to be.  I knew that someday I would be loved by a man like Brasini.  I understood how things worked and how they didn't work." ~ Marlena De Blasi “That Summer in Sicily”

This is a story of a 9-year-old girl whose cold-hearted father sells her to a rich prince.  The prince inquires "How did you manage to emerge from such hurtful abandonment by your father without growing bitter yourself?"  She answered by telling of an experience she had in the market one day.

"Well", you're probably asking yourself, "why is this soccer mom writing about a little Italian girl?" It goes back to a challenge I was given to tell who my hero was from growing up.  I thought long and hard on this and realized that I didn't really have a person in my life that I would call hero.  I felt pretty bad about that but realized there had to be someone or something that motivated me to crawl out of the life I was born into.  Someone that made me believe in something better. 

My "Brasini" were the characters in my book.  Hundreds and probably thousands of books I kept my nose deeply buried in.  Every book in my school library was polished off.  Then I finished every last book at the public library close to my house.  The librarians would save the new books so that I could read them before anyone else.  

My books were my escape.  I lived in Narnia.  Then traveled through the universe on a tesseract.  You might find me swinging over a creek in Terabithia or solving mysteries with Encyclopedia Brown.  And then as I got older, murder mysteries to solve and then romances where the fair prince would come and steal me away from all of the pain.

But the characters - that was what hooked me.  Their normal families doing normal things in a house with a white picket fence.  "Their way was how I wanted my life to be."  They showed me there was something better.  There was no screaming and fighting.  No crying mom or worn-out dad.  No divorce.  No alcoholism.  In books I could be anyone.  I wasn't a scared, shy little girl who was afraid of her own shadow.  There were no limits as to where I could go or what I could do. Or to the kind of life I could have.  

I realize now that all of the fiction that I devoured caused me to romanticize every facet of my life:  my relationships, my career, and my family.  Just as I hid from reality in my books, I chose not to look at the reality of my reality.  I wanted to believe in the good.  I wanted everything to work out and I guess I thought if I just wished it that way that it would.  I mean - it always worked out in the books, right?

So, just as the books gave me my dreams, I have found a new set of heroes to help me rebuild my reality - a completely amazing community that is helping me to find my dreams and become the person I am meant to be.  It took me being broken to see through the fantasy world I had always hoped for into a little bit harsher, more serious world.  There is still beauty, but the sun does have to set, the thorns do make me bleed, and the prince may or may not carry me off into the sunset.  I am going to have to make it on my own.  I am going to have to make adult decisions and I won't always like the consequences.  But I have a feeling that the ending of this story is going to be ever so much better than any book I could write...