not so lady like...

i got this card from a friend.

the cover is on the left & inside is on the right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

sums up lots.

and i am sure my mom is getting her ashes all fluffed up in her urn right about now.

i can hear her, "now chrissy, that is just not lady like behavior"

 

but i realize some days being a lady like mom wanted is overrated.

i am leaning toward raw honesty.

 

the odds of dementia in your fifties is like so tiny-or close to impossible.

it is almost like winning the lottery except we didn't even have to purchase a ticket.

 

seriously...wtf

{sorry again, mom}

 

family history-nope

drug use-no

chronic alcoholism-not that either

head injury/trauma-again, no

metabolic or hormone disorder-blood is perfect

brain tumor-MRIs come back showing a normal 59 year old brain

 

when i see God face-to-face,

is it okay to ask, "srsly God. wtf?"

 

He can't send me to hell

i do know that

on the quiet day when i asked Him to live in my heart.

He promised it was forever.

whether i was talking lady like or not.

 

p.s.  taget sells the card.

i purchased all they had here in my town. 

 

 

 

 



here's the scoop

been kind of quiet lately.

there have been lots of tears of loss & wonder about the path ahead.

 

sweet peter has dementia.

we will probably not know the why of it until he passes away.

 

i have so wanted to write a post that said all of the medicine has healed his brain.

actually, i wanted him to write that post to prove how healthy he was.

each morning i would greet God with prayers of healing peter.

each night i would rest my head next to his, asking God to renew his mind.

 

i have come to the bittersweet realization God's will & mine haven't been the same.

but i want peace & continue to press on in my faith.

in my search for comfort in trying to understand His plan,

i learn i must set aside my will & embrace His.

God has a much greater plan than just me & my husband in our home in our little community.

perhaps in peter's illness & ultimately his death,

more of God's glory & love will be shown to the world by how we walk this path

as a couple & family.

 

one of the doctors we saw while peter was on his little getaway at the hospital

shared some godly advice with me.

he asked if there was calm in all of the medical routine i was trying to manage.

i had to admit it was extremely stressful & a touch crazy

-especially with that sweet brown eyed boy of ours.

he said God would want me to have peace

& if this routine was not creating that, perhaps it was time for a new routine.

 

as a family, we are embracing peace & all the things that peter loves.

ice cream-laughing as a family-watching cops-sitting on the patio watching jeremiah & the dogs-

visits with dear friends-working in our yard.

that's a routine of peace.

quarterback crunch.we purchased the entire tub.it's his fav!
stop by for a scoop when you are in the neighborhood!



a shitty weekend...

yep.  i just said that.
gotta call it like i saw {and smelled} it...and "it" was none other than shit.
like the real human poop kind of shit & lots of it.
my best guess is eight years of it.  not that i am an expert in this sort of thing.

the kind pump truck driver says every three to fours years you need to pump the septic.
it makes for a "healthy" system-i was afraid to confess to pump man that i didn't really think about our "system" beyond the flush.  how shallow am i?

the same weekend, God very BOLDLY showed us the treatment we have been praying would heal peter, is in fact destroying him.  he is done-ready to stop fighting a battle that we continue to lose ground on anyway.  that's even shittier.

yes.  there are regrets & guilt & tears, but now we can relax and live and let life unfold however God decides.  i can stop being a nurse & slip back into my peaceful role as wife.

in all of the shittiness of that last weekend, i do know God is still here-loves our family-has provided for us during this three year fight.  the unexpected shit of last weekend has drawn us closer together as a family.

now i am off to flush with wild abandon-but somewhere between the 2016 summer olympic closing ceremonies and the november presidential elections i must remember to give kind pump man a call.  he will be so proud i remembered to maintain the "health" of our system.

beautifully broken...

 

it has been a week.

a long and ugly week

the ugliest week ever...EVER {please, appreciate my shout}.

 

but at the end of today,

God has taken the sharp, painful, piercing edges of last friday

until till today, this thursday and made them beautiful.

 

remember to embrace the beauty of the brokenness.

i forgot this somewhere between july 2009 and

today.

 

for that i a sorry,

but have been given another chance at grace.beauty.love.

 

 

 

 



tastes like hate...

i am one of those christian folks and have wrestled with this whole
chick-fil-a controversy.  here's my deal:

yes, the bible says marriage is between a man and a woman...but is also says no to divorce, no to premarital sex, no to over consumption of alcohol, no to working on the sabbath and no to lusting after your neighbor's wife, coveting his cool toys or just plan old hating him.

i lived with my husband while we engaged...and we were living in the "marital" kind of way if you get what i'm sayin'.  did i mention he was divorced and had two very young and innocent daughters?  yeah, i'm thinking God was not too happy with either of us back then.  it is so simple to be all judgmental as a christian.  in my head i have made this christian "winners circle"  of us folks that follow all of the "rules" God has set forth.  but here is the thing, eventually, something is going knock my judgemental christian goggles square off my face quicker than i can recite the books of the old testament which instantly demotes me to loser status.

but, if i sit without those uppity christian lenses and truly look at the souls around me, i realize they all are in need of grace, acceptance and God's unconditional love.

i am sorry it tastes like hate...and i can understand why.  above all things, God loves you and i am called to show you that love.  i am sorry my circle of "winners" have made you feel like a lifetime member to the losers circle.  my God is exceedingly disappointed in us.







 
 

more than she-i can handle

had breakfast with a friend this morning.

somehow we just get one another.

we talk about children-vacations-pets-food-education

and God.

she can so sympathize with this pickle of a life i am in right now.

in fact, her loss is by far greater than mine.

her words this morning rang so true in my heart.

to be honest, she said, i don't care how many people hear my story-

even if i went on oprah {we realize she is no longer on the air}

and millions of people came to God hearing my story...it doesn't make up for the life i lost.

she is so right...dreams have been shattered in the middle of a loss

and even when you gather some distance under your feet from the epicenter,

it still just doesn't make sense.

and i flounder when life doesn't make sense.

we did agree that in the very middle of all the tragedy,

many have no idea what to say and in an effort to comfort,

being told God would never give me-you-your family
more than you-me-us could handle just doesn't sit well...ever.

my God loves me...i am His child.

He adopted her-me into His family.

no loving parent would give their child what she-me has been dealt..ever.

in my effort to attempt logic, walk with me for a moment and picture this:

i see my brown eyed boy, who is in fact adopted,

he is nine and in the middle of standardized testing-
which its a BIG deal at school and kids need to bring their "A game" all week..
so say me, god, decided to "shake things up a bit" and really test sweet brown eyes.
so i let him stay up late-like till 10:00.
 then i hook him up to an IV drip {i am medically trained to do this now because of Peter}
and pump extreme sour belts and twix into his veins all night long.
i wake him at 6:00 and let him frolic in the pool for a few hours
then send him off to school on an empty tummy and expect stellar performance on those tests.
this would be mean spirited parental decisions.

i am human and full of flaws but would never do this-okay, perhaps to someone i dislike a whole lot-but my child-not ever. 
God is, well God, and He is good always...
therefore He would never have given our family all that we are faced with...
i know this.

but i also know, He is strong and mighty and will come along side me-her-us
and somehow continue to give the strength necessary to put one foot in front of the other.

AND she-me decided wine-dessert-smokehouse almonds...and getting our butts out of bed and exercising every day keep us from waving that lazy white flag of defeat.

 

longest saturday...ever.

gonna get a little "church-y"...just a warning

i believe in God.  i believe He has a good and perfect plan.

i believe He allowed His very own son to die on a cross many years ago on a Friday to forgive my sins. 
i believe His son was resurrected two days later on what we celebrate as Easter Sunday.

i know the Bible is not a storybook or even a history book.

it is the word of God that is to guide me, right here in my simple life, thru my todays.

late at night in the comfort of my bed, i question God

you see, it seems His plan for my family is diametrically opposed to the plans we had for us.

how could we be sitting in the middle of God's perfect plan when peter remains sick?

i am sometimes convinced God forgot about us sitting in our sweet home with a bad case of Lyme.

i open my Bible to the book of luke and reread the resurrection story {i know...it isn't Easter}

Jesus was hung on a cross, not because he had done anything wrong,
but because this was God's perfect plan to give us all eternal life
and Resurrection Sunday was two days later.

okay, so hear me out...

what were all the people and disciples doing on saturday-
that day between Jesus' death and his resurrection?

 i am certain lots of people were horrified, confused and questioning

God's perfect plan for His very own son. 

they had lost a dear friend and were hopeless on that saturday.

i lay in bed at night questioning God and our circumstances and to be brutally honest

i feel hopeless-how is good going to come of this God? 

but i force myself to remember...

in the middle of that saturday when all hope seem lost, when the disciples were without Jesus,

God was busy...busy preparing for Resurrection Sunday.

so in the middle of this season of our longest "saturday"...ever

i rekindle my hope, knowing God is doing His very best work in our family

and we too will make it to our own "sunday".