Of Grocery Hauls and Nothingness.

So I just cannot stop thinking about something, which means you get another blog post.

Have any of you seen those "Grocery Hauls" on Youtube? They have Target ones, too, and I am sure other stores, but I am most familiar with these grocery store ones.

Basically, for those who do not know, it's a video of people unloading their groceries and telling you what they bought.

Yeah, I know. But there are thousands of them.

Now, some of them are kind of niche markets, so those can be interesting. Like the Swedish vegan family of 12 who shops once a month. Ok, I'll give you that. That's interesting.

Or I suppose it's kind of interesting to see what a super model buys every week.

But those are the outliers.

Most of the thousands of grocery haul vlogs are not that interesting. They are just people who are unloading their groceries and telling you what they bought for the week.

At first when I came across these I was absolutely puzzled. WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD ANYONE WANT TO KNOW WHAT SOMEONE BUYS AT THE GROCERY STORE?

I kept mulling it over in my mind about why these videos could be popular ("popular" meaning some of them have over a million views). Is is that people were never taught how to grocery shop? Are they in an eating rut and need some other ideas of food to buy? Are they looking for meal planning tips?

I am sure there is some of that. But I don't think there is a-million-views-worth-some-of-that. So I kept being puzzled.

Fast forward a few months to a few weeks ago. I am chit chatting with a girlfriend who makes the comment "You know you have reached the mark of a close friendship when you text each other nothingness." We laughed, because really it's true! There are only a couple friends I can send messages like this to:

"Trying this konmari thing. How do I have so many shirts that spark no joy?!"'

"Needless to say, this summer I want all the good beverages in my fridge."

"I am currently covered in bodily fluids that are not my own."

"I just made the best gravy I have ever eaten."

And there is a good reason I do not text that to just everybody:

BECAUSE NOBODY CARES.






Or do they?

See, I am starting to think people care.

How can I not think that?
What is grocery shopping {besides buying the things that sustain you for life}?

It's nothingness.

And people all over the world are tuning in to watch someone put away their groceries. They are tuning in to watch the nothingness of someone's life.

So here is what I am thinking. Since almost all of us can agree that true "community" (which btw is a word I have grown to HATE) is virtually non-existent in our lives (churches, too), and I think most of us would agree that people need true "community" (which I think used to be called "friends" before social media hijacked that word) to live a healthy life, people are starving for someone they can share the nothingness of their life with.
So they get their fill of nothingness online.

I mean, let's be real. What is Instagram (except maybe for some a business tool)?

Nothingness.

What is Facebook full of?

Nothingness?

What is Snapchat?

Nothingness.

IT'S PEOPLE TELLING THE WORLD THEIR NOTHINGNESS AND THE WORLD WANTING TO SEE YOUR NOTHINGNESS TOO.

I think this is deeply imbedded in the human spirit since we were created by a relational God.

But here is the catch.
Nothingness over a screen doesn't count. {Can we all just admit and accept this fact?!}

At first it seems like the real deal....until you realize it isn't. For a while it suffices....until it doesn't.
It's like processed food. You think you are eating real food, but then you are done with the meal and still feel hungry and you realize that it wasn't real food at all.

Human beings are not created to get our "nothingness" tanks filled via a screen device.
We are meant to have real-life friends.

Hubbs and I talk all the time about how great it is to be with certain friends of ours who we call "low-maintenance" friends. They are the kind you can walk into their house and lay down on their couch.
But sadly, we only have a couple of those, and so we find ourselves pining for people to just spend our life with. We don't want a bunch of friends we put on our calendar for a dinner date in three weeks. That doesn't cut it for the human soul. We want people to eat with TONIGHT. We want people to go drop in on. We want people to text nothingness to.

And I know I am not alone. I just heard of a woman who lost her husband recently. "You know, I am social, so I have people to do stuff with," she said. "But I don't have someone to do nothing with."

How tragic, but how common.

I mean, isn't that what most of life is? If the hours of your life were broken up into percentages, wouldn't most of those hours be full of nothing in particular?
Yes. We have those moments of grandeur. But most of life is just everyday stuff.

And I think that's great. I think the best parts of life, the places we meet the Lord the most, are in the moments of nothingness; the day-to-day.

But we are not supposed to experience those moments alone. Or over something you have to plug in. 

Therefore, my encouragement to you is this: Find people you can share nothingness with. Gather friends who you can lay on their couch.

And I realize this is basically the hardest thing you have been told to do all week, but I am absolutely convinced this is one of the greatest needs in our culture.

So next time some nothingness happens to you....or you go to the grocery store and got a great deal on hummus....call someone on the phone and tell them about it. Don't post it to Instagram. Don't Snapchat anyone about it. Use your voice and speak your nothingness into someone's life.

Because I can basically guarantee you that they want to hear it (they are watching grocery haul videos for crying out loud!). And chances are they want to tell you their nothingness too.

It's Because We Hate Kids

I realize it has been *almost* two years since I have posted a blog, but I have been busy. I have had two babies, renovated a house, lost part of said house to a fire, moved across the state, and have had more house projects than I even remember.

But something happened last week in New York, where they made a new law saying you can murder your baby, that I just felt I needed to say something about, and frankly, nobody reads long Facebook posts.

So here I am. Hello, old friends.

Ok, so I don't need to get into the details of the law; you all know what I am talking about.
But I feel like I need to say something that I have not seen hardly spoken of at all.
Everybody seems so shocked by this law, but you all know why laws like this can get passed, right?

IT'S BECAUSE WE LIVE IN A CULTURE THAT HATES KIDS.

People who love kids don't say it's ok to shove a knife through their brain or chest and then vacuum them up.

But people who DO hate kids say that's ok.

And it's pretty easy to see that people hate kids when they say vile-ness like this is ok, but I see this hating all around in smaller, more "pleasant" ways pretty often, too.

As a mother of two small kids, I pretty much can't go in public with my children and not hear phrases like this:
"Wow! Your hands are full!"
"Oh aren't you lucky! A boy and a girl! Now you can be done having kids!"
"You're sure in a rough season of life!"
"You think this is hard! Just wait until they are teenagers!!"
"Not sleeping much, are ya?"
"This too shall pass."
"Don't you know where kids come from?!"

I think they mean well, trying to "sympathize" with me in a typically, what they consider to be, humorous way.

But I don't need sympathy for the greatest blessings in my life.

I don't need your empathy because I get to spend everyday being with and investing in the lives of the children that have brought more light to my life than any other human being on the planet right now. I am not sad that I am currently living the days that I will look back on for the rest of my life as "the glory days; the stuff of dreams," as my husband and I say to each other every single time we see our almost-three year old run around the yard giggling.

And it's not just strangers and passers-by.
I basically can't be in a group of people who also have small kids without hearing something like this, "Ugh! This kid is driving me crazy!" or "It's just chaos all the time!" or "I haven't showered in days" or "I just can't wait for my body to be my own again" or "Remember the days when you used to be able to get something done without being interrupted?" or "I know someone who has SEVEN kids! SEVEN KIDS! No thank you, two is plenty for me!"

Listen, I understand that children throw toys all over the living room when they are playing. I haven't forgotten that I used to be able to work for hours at a time on a project. I'm not an idiot who doesn't realize it takes longer to put kids into their carseats than it used to take just me getting into the car and leaving the driveway.
I know it.
And I am also the allergy-kid mom who is constantly watching for hives. I am also the mom who has babies that get up 3-5 times a night until they are older than a year. I am the mom who has kids that do not nap. I am the mom who has kids that run places; they do not walk through the house, they run through the house.
So I realize sometimes I am tired and my house is a mess and it can be loud.

But don't you realize that when you say these things--whether you are the stranger in the grocery store or the parent to young children-- what it means is that you either think I do, or you personally, long for the life you had before kids. Life sure was easier without children and easier is better; that's what you are saying. You are saying that they have made your life or my life worse than before.

And the thing is, if your are a parent to young kids, you probably don't even mean that. You probably love your kids.
BUT THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE SAYING.

And if you are the stranger in the grocery store asking me whether I know where kids come from or not, you are insinuating that I am miserable...because kids make their parents miserable--OBVIOUSLY--which is why you just said that to me.

The thing is, most of this kind of language is so embedded in modern culture and modern mom-culture, that the people saying it don't even realize they are saying child-hating phrases, and the people listening don't even realize that they are agreeing with them when they respond, "Oh I know; tell me about it!" with a sigh and a roll of the eyes.

Because that's what we say when people make comments like that.
We agree with them. We affirm that yes, my kids are driving me crazy too, even if they really are not, come to think of it. Because we do not want to be impolite. We do not want to say "Actually, yeah, I DO know where they come from...and this was intentional....and we will do that again, and probably again, and maybe again, to hopefully have another kid....and another...and another." We do not say, "Sorry your kids are driving you crazy; mine don't drive me crazy."

Americans don't say truth like that. At least not to the stranger in the grocery store. And probably not to the friend in our mom group, either. We are too polite. So we let that kind of language slide. We affirm this kid-hating language both to the speaker and to every other person in the room who heard us.

I know this happens because I WAS the other person in the room and at the grocery store who heard those conversations before I had kids. And for those of you who are Believers in Jesus, don't think it's not you, too. I was in BIBLE STUDIES even where every parent in the room would talk about child-rearing as nothing but fatigue and heartache and look at me with a wag of their finger and "just-you-waits" which made me think for many years, "Well, that sounds like hell; I think I will stay happy and child-less my whole life."


And that's how you build a culture that hates kids, Wolfies.


You start saying things to total strangers in the grocery store and mom-friends and people in your Bible study and at your job and at the park and on the airplane and in the drive-through that insinuates that kids make your life worse than before.

And cultures that hate kids start passing laws like they did in New York.


So.
You want to make people think it's a bad idea to kill babies?

Then start talking like it's a good idea to have babies.

Seek Work.

Have I told you that we bought a house? Late last summer and we are really starting to love it.
Not necessarily what I would call a fixer upper, as in needing to rip out walls or anything of that nature, but by the way we have fixed everything up it might as well have been.
See, the previous owners were smokers. Hubbs and I are not. So there was that issue we felt we needed to remediate. I set about this by washing every surface in the house, and I mean every surface in the house, with vinegar. It worked fine as a prelude to Kilz primer, but I will admit the house smelled like a pickled cigarette for a good little while.
So besides getting rid of the smoke smell, we ripped out all the flooring right away, threw away all the curtains, and...um....got to work on this little bathroom we inherited.

And I mean, THIS WAS THE BATHROOM, rugs and all were still there when we walked in with our new set of keys. We are just finishing that bottle of soap now. As I said, not totally a fixer upper, but it was not quite "my style," either. It's a white now and it is coming along. It was a similar story with the rest of the house and so we have just been blazing around this place trying to get projects and projects and more projects done. Which, if I have said it once (and I have), I have said it probably 30 times on this little blog: I love projects. But a whole house is a lot of projects.

Needless to say, it's been a busy summer, fall, and winter. We are wrapping up the big projects and now I am into sewing curtains, doing art, and always rearranging furniture.

In the midst of this house renovation, one morning I was reading in my devotions--it must have been the 31st of the month, because I was reading in Proverbs 31-- and a verse jumped out at me; one of those verses I have read hundreds of times and even already underlined. Maybe I was reading it in a different translation this time, but in verse 13 in the ESV it says "She seeks wool and flax and works with willing hands."

It was that little bit about SEEKING wool and flax.

There I was, in the middle of a DIY house renovation, itty bitty baby on my hip, paint brush in my hand, and by a lot of standards I appeared to be busy. WORKING. Getting it done. Why, then, would the Holy Spirit tickle my heart with this verse?

While I continued with my banister painting, wallpaper ripping, floor laying, and furniture refinishing the verse kept returning to my mind.

As I said, what struck me about it was the "seeking" part. Sure, I was working. On the house while trying to manage life, too. Yes, I still always had a real dinner on the table. Hubbs was still getting clean laundry. Baby V was still getting books read to her every day. By all appearances, I would assume, my plate was full, (and maybe it's true what a friend said about me once, "Your plate is a platter in my world." Everyone's plate is a different size, so this is not a talk about NUMBERS of activities). To some people they might have seen me and said I was fulfilling my quota, I didn't need to seek out anything else.

But what if I didn't feel that way? Yes, I have enough projects to keep me going until Christmas. And then I am sure I will find more. But is that work I SOUGHT out? Am I striving to be like the righteous woman in Proverbs 31? Or is the work I am doing just getting done because it is work CAME TO ME?
When you buy a house like we did, work naturally presents itself to you. It is literally staring you in the face, and you do it, or it continues to stare you in the face. So I was doing it.

But do I seek out work? Am I looking around my house willingly saying, "Ok, what more work can I do?"

The truth of the matter is that I don't. Or I didn't at that time; I am working on it. But really, I don't seek out work, my hands are not necessarily willing.
It was very convicting because, honestly, if I am not looking for work to do, what AM I doing with my time? I may claim there is not enough time to get through my laundry list of chores, but if that's true how did I have time to scroll through Instagram, or read some article I don't care about that someone I barely know posted on Facebook? I had time to seek THAT out.

I think the Lord placed this verse in this description because it is so easy, so natural, for us to be given to laziness. And maybe not even a laziness characterized by housework never getting done or broken things never getting fixed or laying on the sofa or caring too much about internet stuff that means nothing, but what about a laziness of only doing enough to get by?

When I lived with Al and Ella , Ella would refer to some people as "corner cleaners" or "not corner cleaners." At first I didn't know what she meant, but then I watched her vacuum her house once, and I kid you not, she moved the chair and vacuumed underneath it. It was a revelation. I had never seen anyone do this unless they were rearranging the whole room. But no. Not Ella. She moved the chair, vacuumed, and then put the chair back in the same place. Then I understood. She was a "corner cleaner." And a part of me has aspired, albeit poorly, to be this type of "corner cleaner." The image has been emblazened in my head since and when I read that Proverbs passage it came back with a flood.
Ella was seeking out work. She was looking for more floor to clean.

Or I think about my mother-in-law who claims she is always "just putzing" as she goes from room to room, looking for something to straighten, trying to think of something to cook. Really, she is not "just putzing," she is seeking out work.

But when I really think about why this verse is in the Bible, I can't help but know that it's because this characteristic shows a characteristic of the Lord. This is something he wants to reveal about himself THROUGH you and me as we go about our lives and fulfill this. He never just sits back and waits for work to come to him. He never waits for you to bring your brokenness. He never waits for me to bring my dirt, my nastiness.
No, he is seeking out work to do in your life, never letting you sit where you are as if you are "good enough to get by." He is seeking you in your brokenness. To fix it. He is seeking out me in the midst of my dirt and nastiness, to wipe it away and make me new again.

God wants me to seek out work to do in his world and his Kingdom SO THAT my life shows the world that God is at work in his world and his Kingdom. He is at work with willing hands in the lives of his people, even getting into all their little corners.

A fragrant aroma.

Maybe having sweet baby V was the catalyst that brought it all to mind, but since she has been here and we have been enjoying her, (oh so enjoying her), my mind has wandered to my friends who are not around to enjoy her.
You know, the ones I have lost contact with for one reason or another.
Some of those relationships needed to go, as in they were not healthy; most likely not healthy for either of us (I am not too proud to admit that I might be toxic to someone: as they say, "Not every student is for every teacher" and some friendships are like that too. I also know I am not universally appealing).
And some relationships have just run their course, which is the way life goes. As my mother always said, "You are friends with someone for a reason, a season, or a lifetime."

But what about the other ones? The ones I sometimes pine for? The ones that had been so sweet and life-giving during their zenith, but then----fell away?

Really, there is one in particular. We met in a theatre dressing room. Long story short, we were in a play together and had never met until we opened the show (amazingly enough), when I was walking by a dressing room during a quick costume change and she grabbed me and said, "Come plug me in, would you!?"
See, she was the star of Bethlehem and had a light-up costume :) It sounds corny, but was really dazzling in the darkened theatre.

And that was all it took. We became fast friends. Best friends fast.

I moved away (like always) and we kept it up. I would go visit her. She would come visit me.
So the distance didn't keep us apart.
We shared clothes (joked that we should call ourselves the Sisterhood of the Traveling Closet) and liked the same men (but thankfully never dated the same men!) and did photoshoots in outrageous costumes (because we both believe that even adult women need to play dress-up every now and again) and I cooked for her and she taught me how to do hair and makeup and I went to see her in all kinds of shows and she laughed at my jokes (because, as I once told her, "I am the funny one; you are just the laugher." "Just? Just? But where would your hilarity be without me to laugh at you??! No where. The funny ones are not funny without the laughers," she reminded me. And we both laughed.).
It was a great time.

And so when the fade started, it caught me by surprise. I didn't think our friendship was fade-able.

Was it because we didn't live by each other to influence each other anymore and be interested in the same things? Was it because we got other friends? Was it just life happening? Was it the Lord?

See, all that time, I had been delving into the Word and my faith and really wanting to know the Lord.
And I guess, while I was away, she was delving into....other things, I suppose.

We kept being amiable. All of our conversations over the phone were now ending with, "We should keep in touch more!" instead of the usual, "Ok, I'll probably talk to you tomorrow!"

Until one day.

*Sigh.

I hate those days.

I was in her city for some reason and so made a point to see her.

And I left with tears in my eyes knowing we would probably never speak again.

She had told me that she no longer believed as I did. As we both had.
That made me sad to hear, but I didn't think that was just enough grounds to stop a friendship. I have all kinds of friends who I am not on the same page with about all kinds of stuff.
She didn't feel the same way, though.
She didn't want the negative influence I brought into her life. She said she didn't need people who believed as I do in her life.

She said she had no place for me anymore. We were at that proverbial fork in the road; she went one way, I went----well I continued going in the direction we both had at one time been traveling.



I remember being sad that she wasn't around to meet Hubbs when he and I were dating. And I remember being sad over the "vacant spot" there was at my wedding.

And now that Vivy is here, it makes me sad again. Sad that she doesn't know I am a mommy.

There is a passage I have read recently that brought all of this full-circle in my mind.
"For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life." (II Cor. 2:15-16)

I always like the first part of this verse, that we are the aroma of Christ. Just spreading his "scent" all around. Oh how I want people to "smell" the Lord on me, as an amazing perfume that fills the room.
That's what I want.

Isn't it funny, though, how sometimes the Lord uses us in ways we don't want to be used?

Like, I would have preferred if the Lord had made me smell to her like the aroma of life to life.
I don't want to smell like death to her. I don't want her to see me and my life as putrid, rancid, a thing unclean.

*Sigh.
Again.

I don't get to choose that, though. I don't get to choose how the Lord uses me in the lives of others.

It's in these times that you can think, "Oh, well maybe I don't have to stand up for Christ like that. Maybe I can sugar coat things. Maybe I can be more universally appealing." For there is something in my nature that doesn't want what I believe to be rejected. I don't want to me the baby that gets thrown out with the bathwater. I don't want to be cast off.

Sometimes it's a harsh pill to swallow when you see playing out that Jesus said, "I did not come to bring peace...but division." (Luke 12:51)

The humanity in me makes me wish I wasn't the divider he used.


Simultaneously, though, it all makes me long for the day when I have eyes to see as he does. When I can see how spreading around the aroma of death to those who are perishing is still a fragrant offering to the Lord. For the day when I can begin to comprehend all that he is doing and how he is weaving all of these journeys together into something that pleases him.
But until that day, when I can see glimpses of how he sees, I keep on. I keep on believing what he has said in his word, not backing down from telling the truth in love, and ever-increasingly so praying for those who the Lord may be using me to cast around an unpleasant odor to; praying that someday the smell for them will change.

Take heart, Wolfies, if God is using you in someone's life in a way you wish he wouldn't. Regardless of how he uses you, if he is using you your life is being an offering to the Lord.

Round Two (or Three).

Themes seem to recur in my life.
Maybe I haven't learned their lessons yet so the Lord keeps bringing them around?

After you have a baby the doctors tell you to "take it easy for a while."
That's a pretty ambiguous phrase. How long is a while? Isn't "Easy" kind of a relative term?
What exactly do they mean by "strenuous housework?"
Really, it was all very curious to me.
So basically for the first couple of weeks I just did nothing but stare at my baby, and I mean, when she looks like this, how do you blame me?

Doing our morning devotions.

I hope she always sleeps like this.

But after a few weeks of staring at the baby and luxuriating on the sofa, you do start wondering what the balance is between soaking this baby stage in and realizing that life just keeps on going...and I have to go with it.
How is a new mom to proceed with life?!? The prescribed six weeks of rest was getting a little long, I felt. I mean, even to ME six weeks is a little excessive.
Eventually, I just had to get off the couch.



Now what?

Friends and family and church members had been so generous and sweet as to supply us with meals, so I didn't need to cook yet. I had scrubbed my baseboards and floors at least three times in the week or two prior to delivery, so they were still looking pretty good. I wasn't supposed to exercise yet, so that wouldn't be getting me moving. Hubbs always mows the yard, so I didn't need to do that. I wasn't supposed to lift heavy bags of rock or soil to get my container garden planted, so that was out of the question. I am afraid of dogs, so I didn't want to walk my new baby around in suburbia (aka "We have pets, not children" land). I am new to town, so I didn't have any best friends I could just drop in on. We don't own this house, so I couldn't paint anything or rip anything out. We only really have a front yard, so I didn't even feel comfortable just going outside and sitting.
Yikes.
"Ah!" I thought. "I will go pull weeds in the landscaping!" But then I remembered that this is a rental and the land lord has chosen the easy-to-maintain "rock garden" for this property.
So there were no weeds.

Blast it all.

And for the first time in my life I didn't really have anything I could do. Nothing needed to be done.
And that will make anyone feel pretty melancholy.

Typically in my life early June had been a bustling time! Planting gardens, weeding flower beds, harvesting early crops, cleaning and painting and priming and getting everything all ready for summer, being outside all the time to enjoy the warmth! You have to do it now or it doesn't get done! And even when I hadn't owned my own house and didn't have those types of things to do I was either moving and unpacking and setting up shop (like last year), or making all kinds of weddings happen (as in previous years), or packing up to head to the Pacific Northwest or the Middle East or wherever.
None of that was to be done this year.

So I sat back down on the couch and I felt what a lack of Dominion feels like. I have talked about this before, and it truly is something the Lord has impressed greatly upon my life.
 By not tending, by not stewarding, I really started to understand that work is a gift from the Lord. We are creatures who need something to do.

Now, all these revelations being said, that still didn't stop me from being in a bit of a malaise. I KNEW beyond any doubt that that is what we are called to do as humans and without it we wither.
And I felt like I was withering. And I started to go into a pity party that I didn't live in the country so I couldn't walk freely, without having to fear neighbors' dogs. And I was becoming unthankful for our cute little rental cottage because it didn't have any weeds for me to pull and I couldn't dig up the ground to just plant a regular garden. I started doubting whether I knew how to cook anymore and doubting whether I would ever be able to run errands with a baby.
Blah.
It was a total case of the Blahs.

And just when I thought these feelings would last forever, these showed up.

*Sigh*

You will remember of course my longstanding relationship with berries.
Read about Round One and Round Two here.

And just like that. Out of nowhere.
God had planted in my yard, all those years ago before I moved here, a mulberry tree.
To blossom and fruit precisely three weeks after my first baby was born.
To be here right in the middle of my pity party.
Right in the middle of my pining for the country.
Right in the middle of my struggle that I had nothing to do and nothing to cultivate and no ground to till.
Right when I was thinking I didn't know anything about making and growing food anymore.
Right in the middle of suburbia.
And right in my own backyard.
Just feet outside my door.
Right next to those weedless rock gardens.

God provided berries for me. Again.
Because he is good like that.

Deliverer.

Hi Wolfies!
I am pleased to announce that last month Hubbs and I welcomed our sweet little daughter into the outside world. We are all adjusting to each other quite nicely, I think, and Hubbs and I are just over the moon about our sweet little Vivy. Sometimes I cry just looking at her because I am so grateful that we get to keep her. She is contemplative like her daddy, doesn't handle the heat well like her mommy, and is stubborn like probably both of us. What a doll :) I can't believe she is real. I can't believe she is ours. Sometimes all I do all day is stare at her and sigh as I say to myself, "She will never be this little again....."

Being a baby is hard work.

Listening to daddy sing a Hymn during family devotions!

Overall I had a pretty uneventful pregnancy, for which I was thankful. Towards the end I kept thinking, "Really? Is this really how the world is peopled? It seems like something more monumental should have happened if I am about to give birth." And while the size of my swollen ankles did seem like they could be some type of monument, that was pretty much it.

Physically, that is.

Spiritually, though, I have to tell you, I felt like there were arrows coming at me and battles I was not up to fighting for a lot of the time.
Maybe I have mentioned this, but since I met Hubbs I have been more fearful and convinced myself that I have more diseases, ailments, and syndromes than I ever even thought about my entire life before I met him.
Chalk it up to the fact that when my life is now linked to someone else's, I feel more of a weight to be here. More of a weight to stay around longer.

The devil knew this, of course. He knew the fear; he was the one putting it there. But with the pregnancy he made me terrified that either the baby or I wouldn't be making it home. Which, to his treacherous credit, is not ENTIRELY irrational. It happens. Which is why I so easily believed it; it was not outside the realm of possibility.

As the due date was approaching and then receding behind me on dates on the calendar, I kept praying and praying for some insight about these fears; something to help me through.
And Him being good like he always is, not too long before our little Sassafrass was born I was doing my devotions one day and the Lord gave me a picture of childbirth. No, not like a vision of it (thank the Lord, that would have been terrifying), but a picture of how childbirth relates to the gospel.

Because everything relates to the gospel. If you have been reading me for any length of time I would hope that you would see that the gospel can be seen everywhere if you are looking for it.
It's what I pray my eyes are opened to. I want to see Jesus in the supermarket and the wind and in Tuesday night dinners and cold rainy mornings.

That afternoon I was reading in Romans and came up to chapter 7.
"Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord." (verses 24-25)

Huh. It struck me as funny. "We call Jesus Christ 'the Deliverer.' Rightly so," I thought, "wretched woman that I am. I needed a Deliverer."

"And so does your baby," Jesus said back to me.

Suddenly in that moment I wasn't afraid for my life---or hers----anymore. I got to be her first picture of the gospel.

You know, it's pretty neat that only inside a woman's body can life be created. Up until that point my body had been the place that gave her life. Without me she could not exist. I was her breath, her sustainer. But you know what? If she just kept staying inside of me forever, I would not continue to be Life to her. No, she would die inside me.
Wretched woman I would be, the cocoon she was in would become a body of death to her.
She had to be delivered.
I had to be her deliverer.


And in that moment I knew a little bit more about the gospel.

Like Vivy in my womb, this body of sin we are born into we have to be delivered from. Spiritually, we are walking around in our locked tombs unless Jesus comes and delivers us from these wretched bodies of death.

And Thanks be to God! He came and has delivered us! This short life, where we will never be as young again as we are today, does not have to be our end!

As for me, the Lord didn't let my devil-imposed fears come true. I didn't have to die to deliver our sweet girl. I got to do it in a hot tub and on a squishy bed. But a few times during labor as I was trying to remember that I got to be a "Christ figure" to Vivy and deliver her from her first body of death, this picture kept coming to mind:

And I realized that he DID have to die to deliver me. Thanks be to God, wretched woman that I am.

What I Learned From Our Bedroom Makeover.

HI Wolfies.
Are any of you still there?

Believe it or not, I am still here, albeit quietly.
I could tell you I have been busy, I could tell you I have been traveling, I could tell you I was working and taking classes and trying to make friends in Homeland City.
Which would all be true.
So that's what I will tell you.

Earlier this Fall I decided that I needed to redo our bedroom. It was a fine bedroom, bedecked still with summer linens. But I just felt like it needed something more.

 

So of course what is a 21st century woman to do?

Scour Pinterest and all of these design blogs she follows incessantly and come up with some good plan.

Which is exactly what I did.

I had a lot of pictures of headboards on my Pinterest board, so I made one of those.

In progress. Obviously.

And I had a lot of pictures of those Salon, or Gallery, walls. So I made....like....6 pieces of art.

And I knew winter was coming so I made a duvet cover to go over our down comforter. And I thought I should probably make a lot of mis-matched pillows. So I made 6 of those.
Because that's what people are doing now. 6 mis-matched pillows.

And I worked and worked and Pinterested and worked.
And I got the room done.

All put together.
It looked really nice.

But I didn't sigh a contented sigh of relief. Like the kind of sigh you make when you walk into your house. Which exceedingly puzzled me.

So for months we slept in a bedroom that didn't feel like home. Hubbs said he liked it, because he likes what I do. Which is so nice of him to say, and I know he meant it.

But was it really Hubbs and I? How could I have put so much work into something and not come away loving it?


Right before Thanksgiving I quit for a number of reasons my little part time job I had picked up, which put more time in my hands. So I filled my time with this project and that, taking some classes, etc.
But I started to have lonely days every now and again. Now, I am not one given to much loneliness. The Lord has blessed with a great multitude of friends. So I was surprised when this feeling hit. But, you know, it's different when you have friends but none of them live by you.
And none of my friends lived in Homeland City.
So I was lonely.


Around Christmas time I started to realize about our bedroom that I didn't really like it. Yes, it was trendy. Yes, it was pretty. Yes, I had seen all kinds of pictures that looked just like it.

And that was the problem. It occurred to me that I had designed our bedroom not to be a haven and a place of retreat for Hubbs and I, but I designed it to look like HER bedroom.
HER being the hundreds of unnamed bloggers and Pinteresters I had gone to for inspiration. Or, dare I say it: copied.
I was appalled at myself. How could I be so influenced? Me, Little Miss Projects, copying someone else, not coming up with my own ideas, not following my gut?
I knew right then and there I had to stop it. I had to stop looking to them for inspiration, I had to cut these un-met women out of my life. I couldn't let their voice over rule mine.

In a flash of tyranny of the urgent, and I am almost too embarrassed to admit it, one weekend I spent like 6 hours deleting pictures off my Pinterest house board.
Oh. My.
I am sure Hubbs thought I was nuts as he would hear me saying, "What was I thinking?!?!? I DON'T LIKE BATHROOMS PAINTED BLACK!!! Who do I think I am?!??!?!????"

But alas, the board got de-cluttered and I realized those things I really do like. Not because someone else told me to like them, but because I have liked them all along (more often than not I have liked those types of things since I was 8 when I started reading Better Home and Gardens and drawing blue prints).


But to my surprise something else occurred to me other than I needed to pair down our bedroom: I was even more lonely than before.

Have you ever had a situation that makes you go, "Hmmmmmm.........."? Well this was precisely one of those.
How could not following designers on blogs and Instagram make me feel even more lonely?

And then I knew. Not only had I been so influenced, so peer-pressured, by all of these owners of houses I copied, but I had also been using them to fill a void. In their absence I realized that I had been filling some of my lonely hours with keeping up with their lives. Following the growth milestones of their kids. Living vicariously through their travels.
And not doing that with the people I actually KNOW and love.
So not only was I lonely in Homeland City, but I was filling up "social hours" I could have been at least on the phone with best girl friends who don't live here hearing about THEIR travels and THEIR kids' milestones.

It makes me wonder if this is the pandemic of today's society and I fell prey to it too: Lonely in a time of easy connections to hundreds of "people," but not really knowing anyone you could just call up to grab coffee with.
It's a sad place to be.

So I am stopping it.
I am trying to reach out and be a friend again.

And I took down some of the art on our bedroom wall. And now I sigh a little easier when I walk in.

OH! And in other news.......................Coming Spring, we're joining the club.