also....

I would like to amend my last post by clarifying that I am not just talking about material conveniences when I say that my life is good and that I'm blessed. I'm talking about having a deep sense of satisfaction in the God that delights in making me whole. And I'm talking about having more love in my life than I ever thought I would.

Ok, the end.

Life, Love, and Other Mysteries

"The world will give you that once in a while, a brief time-out; the boxing bell rings and you go to your corner, where somebody dabs mercy on your beat-up life."

That's one of my favorite quotes ever. It's from a book called The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. Do yourself a favor and read that book, it's beautiful. Anyway, I think I get so moved by it because it just so accurately describes my life sometimes. I'm sure I'm not the only one. I mean who doesn't feel beat-up in life sometimes? And who doesn't love a good break from it?

My dear and wise friend Lara and I often like to delve into the issues in our dark and twisty lives, and we've both found that we actually find comfort in chaos. When you've grown up in an unstable and chaotic environment, it's just the norm, that's just what you're used to. And then when things slow down and go well for a while, you kind of look around and wonder what's wrong. I only mention Lara, not to air her proverbial dirty laundry, but to reiterate that I understand I'm not the only one who feels this way. In fact, if I'm ever complaining (go ahead, just try to catch me), please understand that I realize that any given thought or feeling is pretty much never unique to me. Just saying. But the point is that I'm great at being the victim. Oh woe is me.

So what do I do when I look around me and realize that my life has become absolutely wonderful? I am kind of foreign to this place. But Jesus has made this place for me. My home, my husband, my children, my days, my nights, my smiles, my tears, MY life. It's kind of hard to believe. I'm not good at this. I love it, and I can function here, but it's not my forte. Chaos and turbulence are my forte but I never wanted my adult life to revolve around those things and it doesn't. Mission accomplished, right? But here's what happens. I complain. "About friggin what??" you might ask. And I shall answer, "well, I don't know, I just find things." I get physically uncomfortable and I'm a nightmare to be around...really, I'm talking about bug bites, too hot, too cold, too pregnant, too sunburned, too tired, too energetic...you name it, it can piss me off. LOST...oh, so help me, anything that is lost, including myself, throws me into a tailspin of moodiness.

And really, I wake up every day in my 3 bedroom house in the suburbs to my healthy family and my air conditioning and then I make coffee before sending Joe off to his well-paying job and I settle in for a day spent with my babies because I don't have to go to work. We can either watch some educational shows on our large screen TV or we can get into our reliable SUV and drive to a place like the zoo or the museum for the day. Then when Joe gets home, we'll eat dinner together and play with our toddlers until it's their bedtime, at which point we will turn on a Yankees game and play Yahtzee until we go back to sleep just to rise and do it all over again tomorrow. Oh, and if it's a Sunday, we get to put on nice clothes and go to the church that we chose and worship God freely in a country that allows us to do so. Bonus.

I promise you I don't say all this to brag about my life, but rather to highlight the utter ridiculousness of the fact that I could EVER POSSIBLY find a problem with it. I think I just sometimes wonder if maybe this is my "brief time-out" and the Lord is showing me mercy for the time being until He catches on to the fact that I don't deserve any of it and throws me back into the pit of hopelessness where I belong.

Ok, hold the phone. I know this is not the kind of God I serve. I know He loves blessing me and never takes joy in my pain. But it just all seems so surreal sometimes and I hope so much that it doesn't go away. But it doesn't matter how much I try to deserve it, I never will. But sometimes I just want to run away and live in a hut in Uganda where I have to walk miles to get to some kind of water that isn't all that safe to drink and actually have my life be difficult for once so that I can stop complaining and truly appreciate every moment of the life I get to live.

My life isn't really all that beat-up after all.

Oh, and aren't father/daughter dances and mother/son dances strange traditions at weddings? Shout out to Pete Cassara. Bye.