she speaks...

 not that you haven't noticed, but it's been almost four months since i've posted anything here. and it isn't like i haven't had anything to write about...i've started about a million posts in my mind only to have them trail off into dinner dishes and laundry and homework and dentist appointments and tears and disillusion and fatigue, etc. ad infinitum. and before you wonder about my last few reasons...michael and i are great ~ better than ever, in fact; there's just been a lot going on.

some readers who are familiar with us through joel and kathy davisson's ministry will know that we ended our association with them and stopped facilitating weekly calls and marriage intensives back in january. this had nothing to do with the ministry in and of itself and everything to do with the fact that michael and i felt that our time in ministry had run it's course. we'd actually started talking about it last summer and had decided we'd stop at the end of the year which ended with us giving an extra month before we said goodbye. we're eternally grateful for everything we learned and were blessed with during our five year involvement and take our hats off to everyone who serves in some kind of ministry; while it's amazing, it can, at times, be heartbreakingly difficult.

honestly, i've thought about this post so much and now that i'm writing it, i'm struggling with what i want to say because it's been a while and i want the words to matter and i feel that i owe an explanation for my silence, the latter being largely influenced by my own internal struggle with broken marriages and why they break.  over the last several months, i've watched someone i really care about walk through the wreckage that is divorce. there have been tears and anger and disbelief and late night calls and sadness and soup and wine. there've been good days and bad. small triumphs and momentous tragedies. through this, there's been a remembrance for me of when i was in the same place with michael five years ago, and i can easily recall the throat clogging feeling of him choosing a different life over the one he shared with me, the deep frustration of trying to reason with someone who stood fast in his own resolve. and i wasn't even in it as long as my friend has been nor was it carried out to the same degree. kind of reminds me of words from a song by james taylor...

well, people got used to seeing them both together
but now he's gone and life goes on
nothing lasts forever, oh no
she gets the house and the garden
he gets the boys in the band
some of them his friends
some of them her friends
some of them understand
lord knows that this is just a small town city
yes, and everyone can see you fall
it's got nothing to do with pity

i just wanted to give you a call

i think i must have listened to it about a bajillion times when michael and i were going through our stuff. well, that and i will survive. gotta love gloria gaynor...

on top of this, my aunt passed away almost two weeks ago. cancer. god, how i hate that word. and during her last week, my uncle (her husband) was diagnosed with leukemia. i'm not even sure if she knew. so that ride isn't over yet. and just a couple of days ago, i realized that one of my closest and dearest friendships may be entering a difficult season. of it all, i believe this will be the most treacherous valley i'll walk through right now and not because i think the friendship will be lost.  it's more because i feel dangerously close to stuffing my feelings about what's happened in the hope of not hurting or displeasing my friend in anyway which was my default long before i knew her but which the pull of is still dangerously tempting. ironically, it's because of my friend that i've been able to grow and heal and take part in my life in ways i never would have before which is part of why i'm so troubled by where we now find ourselves. i hope that what i've learned from her will help me in healing the relationship with her.

eucharisteo...eucharisteo...eucharisteo...

look it up.

Wanna Make You Love Me...

Is it me or is there just suhem' 'bout a country song? A country love song to be more exact. Last night at our marriage group one of the couples told us about this song, Wanna Make You Love Me, by Andy Gibson and I wanted to share it you all. Awesome lyrics guys...hop to it!





Old people make me cry
Goodbyes make me drink
Tom Petty makes me drive too fast
The Bible makes me think
Children make me laugh
My momma makes me wanna treat a lady right
Like daddy always has

You make me wanna buy a rose
You make me wanna shine my shoes
Baby you make me wanna dance
Better than I do
You make me wanna be a man
Who makes you laugh and makes you proud
I wanna be everything you need
You make me wanna make you love me

Girl I'm not poetry
I'm not the finest wine
But I'll toast to you and me
And I'll try to make you rhyme
I'll learn your favorite song
Stand in the yard with my guitar
And sing outside your window all night long

You make me wanna buy a rose
You make me wanna shine my shoes
Baby you make me wanna dance
Better than I do
You make me wanna be a man
Who makes you laugh and makes you proud
I wanna be everything you need
You make me wanna make you love me
Oh yeah

You make me wanna buy a ring
You make me wanna put you first
You make me wanna talk to God
Even when I'm not in church
You make me wanna be a man
Who makes you laugh and makes you proud
I wanna be everything you need
You make me wanna make you love me
Oh yeah
You make me wanna make you love me

Live31...

On November 11 of this year, 5 male students from Baylor University, committed to making a change in American Society in its view toward beauty, posted this status update:

“I’d rather have a Proverbs 31 woman than a Victoria’s Secret model.”

Throughout that night, this status was reposted numerous times and as it spread, they saw there was need for more action. They started with a Facebook page saying the same thing as their status updates and they also decided to post a video. In 3 days, they received over 120,000 views on youtube, and their Facebook page grew to over 7,000 likes (now close to 12k).

Naturally, they've received a lot of mixed reactions to their statement. Up front, it seems a bit refreshing given our societies (churched and non) obsession with physical appearance and it puts me in remembrance of a Bath & Body Works ad campaign that was out over 10 years ago in which all of the models were size 12 and above and I remember thinking, "at last! a real depiction of what many look like!" Not a svelte size 2 with boobs 'til Tuesday but rounded thighs and bellies and arms and cheeks, slightly stetch-marked and not as smooth and perky as once before but warm and lusty (oooops...did I just say that?) and welcoming. I am Venus At A Mirror, thank you very much, and live with the reality of that every day and let me tell you, it's a love/hate relationship at best because every woman ~ Victoria Secret model or not, has image issues. Oh yes, she does. Just watch, How To Look Good Naked, sometime and you'll see.

But, more than that, what immediately hit me when I read this little yet powerful statement was this: have all 5 of these university gentleman ever self gratified? Ever looked at porn? Ever shopped at Vicky's Secret store (double entendre intended). Cause I'm thinkin' that would make their statement pretty meaningless if they had and this is why: in the almost 5 years that we've been involved in Christian marriage ministry, we've yet to talk with one man who hasn't participated in any of the aforementioned activities; married or not.

Not one.

Not one.

Not one.

This isn't a judgement; it's a sad reality. And I totally get how childhood wounding and family of origin abuse and abandonment and emotional arrestedness can play a part in why we do what we do; but when one regularly comes in contact with men who are married to Godly women who genuinely strive to be so ~ whether she be a Prov 31 woman or a Victoria's Secret model (both are children of God) ~ and sees that these same men are turning towards indiscriminate sex to be fulfilled instead of towards the woman they're married to, then the statement made by these 5 men is nothing more than a cock and bull story to me.

Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.
Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe;
let her breasts satisfy thee at all times;
and be thou ravished always with her love. ~ Proverbs 5:18-19

And....hello....it doesn't even matter what she looks like! We've met men married to drop-dead-gorgeous inside and out women and they still look at porn, self gratify or leave their wife for a pole dancer!

Guess I'm a little jaded.

A few days ago, Michael and I were watching a Christmas movie and towards the end, the main couple got married in a simple ceremony. The mayor ~ who officiated ~ asked who was giving the bride away (Santa, naturally), then for the rings, then pronounced the couple husband and wife. I laughed a bit and jokingly said to Michael, "What kind of wedding was that? No vows." to which he drolly replied, "What's the point of vows? Most people don't keep them anyway."

Ouch.

And hey, I know that there's a lot of good men out there; men who honor their wives and their vows, who genuinely forsake all others ~ including themselves ~ for love of God and their wife, who want to leave a legacy for their children that will protect their hearts and minds and future spouse. I also know that the porn industry brings in more money annually than major league sports and that men aren't the only participants in supplying that revenue. It's a tangled web we weave, people. Has been from the beginning and it doesn't matter if a man is with a Proverbs 31 woman or a Victoria's Secret model; if he has a proclivity to act out....he will because as long as a person continues in the belief that God is holding out on them somehow; that He doesn't want to give them what they really need and as long as people continue to let that be the story of their lives then that's how they'll show up.

So, what do you feel when you read the statement from the guys at Baylor? Does any part of it resonate with you or do you have a different take? We'd love to read your thoughts in the comment section of this post.

This One Is For You Baby....

"Push"

Every time I look at you the world just melts away
All my troubles all my fears dissolve in your affections
You've seen me at my weakest but you take me as I am
And when I fall you offer me a softer place to land

You stay the course you hold the line you keep it all together
You're the one true thing I know I can believe in
You're all the things that I desire, you save me, you complete me
You're the one true thing I know I can believe

I get mad so easy but you give me room to breathe
No matter what I say or do 'cause you're to good to fight about it
Even when I have to push just to see how far you'll go
You wont stoop down to battle but you never turn to go

You stay the course you hold the line you keep it all together
You're the one true thing I know I can believe in
You're all the things that I desire, you save me, you complete me
You're the one true thing I know I can believe

Your love is just the antidote when nothing else will cure me
There are times I cant decide when I cant tell up from down
You make me feel less crazy when otherwise I'd drown
But you pick me up and brush me off and tell me I'm OK
Sometimes that's just what we need to get us through the day

You stay the course you hold the line you keep it all together
You're the one true thing I know I can believe in
You're all the things that I desire, you save me, you complete me
You're the one true thing I know I can believe

Cheating Death...

I'm afraid to die.

Afraid of what it will look like, when it will happen, how it will feel, how those I leave behind will manage. I know that death is a part of life and that, as a believer, it isn't the end so much as a transition of going from this life to standing in front of Jesus as quickly as my next breath. Still...it scares me and every day I run from it; fill my life with things and tasks and people and words to try to keep the reaching claw of it at bay.

A couple of days ago I was reading this blog post and I was struck by the author's words:

But we all cheat death every day, don’t we? We cheat it by crafting beauty, or loving someone, or making new life; sometimes we cheat it just by leaving the gun in the drawer, the liquor in the cabinet, the hateful word in our bellies.

We are all of us cheating death, right up to the very end, and then, by the grace of God, beyond that end. The first Adam was the death-bringer, the second Adam is the death-cheater, and now here are you and me, each of us faced every moment with the choice about which we will be, who we will be.

I get so worried about the pain of physical death that I forget how quickly my heart can die too; with a word, a look, an act. Death-bringers, indeed. And that every time I move in love towards Michael or my children; every time I create something with my hands or speak life into someone ~ every time I receive the same from another ~ I cheat death and my heart shines a little brighter.

In her book, One Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp says, "Out of the dark, tender life unfurled. Out of my own inner pitch, six human beings emerged, new life, wet and fresh. All new life labors out of the very bowels of darkness. Darkness transfigures into light, bad transfigures into good, grief transfigures into grace, empty transfigures into full. God wastes nothing."

Did you see that? Nothing wasted. No thing. And I realize, in my saner moments when I'm not freaking out about the inevitable, that I've cheated death many many times; sexual abuse, abandonment, illness, death, marriage...each experience moving from a place of complete, throat-clogging darkness to a redemption so sweet I'd swear He had it fixed all along. He's like that, you know?

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. ~ Jeramiah 29:11