End of day thoughts. And a silly poem.

Sinus Cacophony

by Sheila Dougal

Should be sweet voice

Soft child speak

Should be jolly laughs

Make smiles peak

But throbbing face

Every sound creates

Sinus Cacophony

And that’s about all I can muster today folks. The sinus headache is in full force today. Despite it’s stabbing, throbbing anger, I really enjoyed every minute of time I had with cousins I haven’t seen in 14 plus years today. We’re a loud, laughing family. Which my head tried to protest, especially at the gaming center where we bowled, played arcade games and shuffle board. But the enjoyment of spending time with each one was well worth it.

Reflections on 2017 and resolves for 2018

The last three days of 2017 will be mostly spent at the hospital where I work. So if not now, I won’t have much of a chance to reflect on 2017 or make plans for 2018 before it’s here.

Today I went to the gym after waking up late (7:30 am is two hours of sleeping in for me), took my teenage sons to their dental cleaning appointment, got a replacement florescent light bulb for our kitchen and then stopped here at our local library to capture maybe an hour of intentional, prayerful thinking on what has happened this year and what I am aiming for the next.

I asked my 13 and 14 year olds this morning to consider three questions:

Something you’d like to learn?
Something you have questions about?
And something you are interested in?

They looked at me like I was from Mars. That’s pretty much where it stands right now as far as their opinion of me anyway, so I wasn’t offended. Somehow, in the last year, I’ve become the parent that doesn’t know anything, and does things that NO other parent does to their kids. Things such as, ask them to put away their youtube/snapchat/instagram, video games, phones and take their earbuds out so they can consider three questions. Yep, I’m that parent.

This leads into both a reflection on 2017 and a resolution for 2018 when it comes to being a mom raising men.

Reflection

A Hard Year For My Kids

My kids had a hard year. If you’ve read my blog much, or my about me page, or if you know me well at all you know that I am working the mom thing from a difficult marriage point of view. The difficulty specifically lies in what I’ve dubbed being a One Peter Three Wife. Another way I’ve coded this kind of marriage is an “even if” marriage. 1 Peter 3:1-2 in the CSB version says it like this:

In the same way, wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands so that,even if some disobey the word,they may be won over without a word by the way their wives live when they observe your pure, reverent lives.

See that “even if” in there. All marriages are hard, or at least have hard seasons somewhere. But the man or woman who finds themselves in a marriage to a spouse that doesn’t love God’s word, doesn’t follow Christ, doesn’t “obey the word”… we find ourselves in a particular kind of hard marriage. The kind where some might think you should bail because a divided house is sure to fall anyway. But Peter doesn’t say that. And neither does Paul. Peter says, “Even if you find yourself in a difficult marriage to an unbeliever, try to win them over without preaching to them!” And Paul says, “If they are willing to stay married to you, stay married. You might win them over!” (my paraphrase of 1 Cor. 7:12-16).

So, I’ve been in one of these “even if” marriages for 24 years. And it hasn’t been easy. We’ve been separated and on the verge of divorce more than once and 2017 was one of them.

This year my sons have had to live through the fear and sick feelings that come with having parents who aren’t in a stable marriage. I remember those feelings. I was one of those kids too. But I see God’s grace so much in this hard year for my kids. They have seen first hand what it looks like to trust Christ in relational trouble. They have seen and heard their mother’s prayers. They have seen God work repentance in their parents. And they have seen God work reconciliation and healing and true change.

Good In the Midst of the Hard Stuff

In 2016 Connor had told me he didn’t want to go to church anymore and was very adamant about it. In 2017 I’ve seen God use Valley Life Church to draw Connor and Ryland into relationships at church through the youth there. Connor now goes to youth group almost every Sunday. Ryland wanted to proclaim is faith in Christ and be baptized this year. God is so faithful! He’s been with me and my boys through the fire this year. He’s heard my prayers and he’s at work in my sons and marriage.

2017: The Year God Put Us In A Church

I had been bouncing from church to church for a couple years before 2017, but after summer vacation I decided to commit myself to Valley Life Surprise. Valley Life is a member of the Southern Baptist Convention and Acts 29 Ministries. So I guess you could say I’m a Baptist now, but I would say I’m a very grateful Christian. Valley Life Surprise is a church plant in the west valley. Just weeks ago, we purchased a building so that we have a base for the mission of reaching out to our community with the gospel. We’re a small church, but I’m confident God is adding to his church, even in this little spot in the world. I love that the gospel is preached at Valley Life every Sunday no matter what passage of scripture is being preached. The good news that God has give his Son in our place for our sins so that we could no longer live for ourselves but for Him is pointed to constantly. I love that!

First Step In A Dream-Direction

In 2017 I, finally, started working on getting my bachelor’s of science in nursing through an online program at Grand Canyon University. This is really a first step in following a direction I’ve been dreaming and praying about. It won’t be long and my teenage sons will be out of the house on their own. When that time comes, I’d like to be ready to give myself to the needs of whatever people God would lead me to, as a nurse. Possibly a nurse practitioner. Maybe it’s because of the healthcare changes I hear about politically. Maybe it’s because I work in a hospital and see first hand so much of the fruit of our broken system and unhealthy lifestyle as Americans. Maybe it’s because I just happen to be a nurse and feel Christ’s love compelling me to give to those who can’t give anything in return. It’s probably a conglomeration of all those things. And it’s pushing me in the direction of wanting to further my degree in nursing so as to put myself in a position to provide healthcare for those who can’t access it. So far the classes are going very well. There’s lots of reading and writing, which I enjoy. Sometime soon comes the dreaded statistics class. That might not be my favorite.

Resolves

As I look back at 2017 and see God’s faithfulness and mercy, I feel encouraged by His ways and words to take hold of his promises for 2018. Not that he has specific promises that I know about for 2018, but he has specific promises. And I want to lay hold of them in 2018. God’s word is true. He does what he says he’ll do. And his ways are made known to me in Christ. So I can look to the scriptures, and look to Jesus and believe that he will do certain things.

I resolve to lay hold of the promise that God will work all things together for my good to conform me to the image of his Son (Rom.8:28-29). In 2018 I want to have a constant view of my life that says, “This is God’s tool to serve me in making me more Christlike.” And the only way to change the way I think about life so as to have that view spill out of me when I’m shaken is to renew my mind! And the only way I know to renew my mind is to start putting God’s word in it more.

With that desire in mind and that promise in view, I resolve to begin memorizing scripture. I’ve never followed Beth Moore, read any of her books or done any of her Bible studies. Nothing against her at all, just never have read her. But, I tripped over her launch of a group on Facebook the other day where she is starting a community online committed to memorizing the book of Galatians. It’s intimidating. I’ve failed at completing goals for memorizing large portions of scripture before, but I want to do this! I need it!

When I told my kids I was considering memorizing Galatians the critical response I got emboldened me to do it even more.

This leads to another resolve: To read my Bible from my Bible in the house, not from my phone. I do most of my Bible reading on my phone. And that’s fine except I’ve been thinking about how often my kids see me on my phone. They don’t know what I’m doing, they just see me on my phone. I want them to see me in my Bible. Here’s a promise I can cling to in seeking to press God’s word into my memory:

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. John 15:7-8

This leads to another resolve: Read 4 books other than the Bible this year. I love to read, but I rarely get through a whole book in a year. I know that sounds crazy, but I usually only get bits and pieces of books or articles. And that’s really because I don’t carve the time out to read. In 2017 I read 5 books other than the Bible. All of them assigned books by our marriage counselor. I can make a goal to read 4 books and do it.

Don’t Grow Weary In Training Your Kids

This is a big one. I grow weary in doing good often. And I see in myself a tendency I saw in my dad: to “give up” whenever things don’t turn out how I want or people don’t respond favorably to me. The giving up I’m talking about is an attitude of despondency. Not a surrendered trust in God, but a faithless, hopeless pouting about how hard things are. This attitude is what I see in the story about Israel fearing going into the promised land because of the giants. God scolded them because they looked at the giants but they didn’t look at the greatness of their God! I do that. I hate it that I do that, but I do. And I when I catch myself I wanna smack myself upside the head and say, “Shape up Sheila! Look up! Your God is the Creator of heaven and earth! He could have wiped this earth off the map a long time ago but he waited for you! You are HIS! You have Christ and all that is Christs forever! Stop pouting. Get your tail out from between your legs and get out there and restrain your kids from the evil their bent towards. Teach them the gospel. Teach them God’s ways! Don’t pay attention to their eye-rolling responses. Keep tilling the ground of their hearts. Keep planting the seeds of truth. Keep watering with prayer. God will be faithful! It won’t be for nothing!”

A promise I can cling to for that resolve:

“You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” -Deuteronomy 11:18-19

“so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty,but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” Isaiah 55:11

There’s more in my heart than I can fit in this blog post. God knows. I’ll spend time writing in my 13 year old “Faith” journal probably sometime on New Year’s day. But I better wrap this up for now. I have hungry teenage sons and a husband on his way home from the gym. They might eat each other alive if I don’t get there and cook something.

Some good things in a hard few days

fullsizeoutput_f4e The last couple days have been not my better ones. Probably the best part of them was the hour I spent on the floor smiling and making funny noises with 1 year olds in the church nursery. It’s the most smiling I’ve done in the last 48 hours.

Some days are hard. And I get discouraged too easily.

I was thinking today about how I’ve probably read just about every Christian-marriage book on the shelf. And how one common theme bothers me: they all seem to say if you do what they’re suggesting, your marriage will be great! I’ve yet to find a book that says, “Even if you do these things for your marriage it may not get better. But Jesus is worth it.” Maybe I should write one.

The second best thing that happened in the past 48 hours is my visit at my grandmother’s this afternoon. Having the recent diagnosis of lung cancer metastasis to her brain and spinal cord, many family members that I haven’t seen since I was a little girl have been coming to visit. Today I got to see two of my great Aunts: Velma and Sandra, both from Arkansas. The last time I saw them I was 10. I remember being at my great grandma’s rock house in Arkansas and the sound of their voices as well as the chocolate gravy with homemade buiscuits great-grandma Emma made us. Seeing the 33 year older version of them today was a blessing. Connor and Ryland also got to meet them. We exchanged mini-life updates and laughs about our families tenacious tendency to be competitive, exaggerate and be loud. There were four generations in that small apartment and it was good.

Driving home I thought about how the goodness of that family time was just a redeemed taste of what my Creator has always meant for me. He made me for a family. His family. With laugher and roles and helping one another and love.

This verse really struck me in my #IsaiahChristmas reading today:

‘In that day man will look to his Maker, and his eyes will look on the Holy One of Israel. He will not look to the altars, the work of his hands, and he will not look on what his own fingers have made… ‘ Isaiah 17:7-8

One day I will look on the One who made me literally. But something wonderful has happened in me in that I believe on the One I have never seen. And I find I “look” to him more and more and recognize how stupid I have been when I catch myself looking to the things I’ve made. As though they could save me. As though they could help me. As though they could make me to know love.

Only my Maker can do that.

An Unlikely 23 Years

Wedding Day- Sept.4, 1993

Connor’s birthday- April 1, 2003

During our first separation and pregnancy with Ryland- November 2004

Seeking a new start in Arizona all together- October 2005

Second separation March 2010

Still together on a desert trail- Spring 2015

Today has been a tough day, emotionally.

Twenty three years ago today I made a vow before God and about 100 family and friends to take James as my husband, to have and to hold from that day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, till death do us part.

Those are some serious promises. Better, worse, richer and poorer, sickness and health have all been part of these 23 years. Honestly, most of it has been hard. We weren’t a very likely match at 19 and 21. He from the big city, me from a small town. His dad a pharmacist, mine a log truck driver. We met in a child development class, taking pre-reqs for nursing. He hated it. I loved it. He had long hair and torn jeans and loved Journey. I was on fire for Jesus after having decided to heed the call to follow him a year previous at 16. He was raised as a Catholic, but more as tradition than devotion and by his teen years religion was not on his radar at all. He had already been in a very serious relationship and at it’s end decided to move to Roseburg, Oregon from Phoenix, Arizona to take his dad up on his offer to pay for college as long as he lived at his house. I had never had a true boyfriend. I liked a couple of different boys, but that’s about as far as it went. One guy from my youth group at church was really trying to win me, but I thought of him as a good friend and not a boyfriend or potential husband. And then I met James.

We had a few conversations during the breaks at our evening child development class at Umpqua Community College. He teased and asked me to share my chocolate cake and wondered what kind of music I liked. I thought he was handsome and talked about my favorite Christian artists and invited him to church. He came. He met my family, played basketball with my dad and brother, went to the beach and camping with my friends while I worked as a C.N.A. at an Alzheimer’s facility, and on Easter Sunday he wrote me a love note. I would say we started dating after that, but it really wasn’t dating. In fact, I think we only went on maybe one or two “dates” before we were married. Most of our time together was spent at either my house or his dad’s house, church or after work talks.

I was head over heels for James almost immediately after we became an official couple, but because of my convictions as a Christian, my relationship with him between April of ’92 and September of ’93 was stormy and full of indecision, conviction, guilt and desire. I knew, after 8 months of hanging out with each other that we did not share the same desires in life, but the desire to be with him and the dream of being married and on my own and having my own family overtook my conviction that we were not heading the same direction in life. Storming around my dreams, desires and convictions, the emotions of that time made it very hard to discern what I just wrote. If you were to have asked me then how I felt about James and marrying him, I would have said I loved him and believed we would grow together. I was naive to say the least. On Christmas of 1992, the same year I graduated from high school, James proposed to me and I accepted. On Labor Day of 1993 we were married at the church I grew up in.

In the past 23 years we both have come face to face with the reality that we want different things in life. Through 2 separations and the birth of 2 sons we’re still married. I’m sure that means something different to him than it means to me.

Over these 23 years I’ve learned that life is not about me, it’s not about my marriage, it’s about Christ. The trials and fires of this unequally bound relationship have caused me to wrestle with God, ask hard questions, face hard answers and no answers, and come to grips with what I really believe. I believe I can’t really know who I am, or why I am or what marriage is, or how relationships work best until I know God in Christ. I believe marriage is his creation and has little to do with romance and anniversary presents and wedding rings and much to do with displaying how Christ has self-sacrificingly and faithfully loved his people.

I believe happiness in marriage ebbs and flows. I believe in toughing it out when everyone says you shouldn’t stay in a marriage where you’re not happy. Every married person is not happy with their partner at some point. It’s inevitable. We’re human.

I met a couple at work the other day who have been married 59 years. While talking with them about the significance of that, the wife said she didn’t believe it was good to stay married if you weren’t happy. I was taken back. Here was an 80 something year old woman who had endured 59 years with a real man (not a contrived romantic ideal as seen on t.v.) telling me a person who isn’t happy shouldn’t stay married. In my surprise I asked, “I bet you’re glad you didn’t give up on this marriage when you weren’t happy somewhere in those 59 years or you wouldn’t be sharing with me the achievement of being married this long?” She conceded and admitted there were unhappy times, but that they were too broke to afford a divorce then. She was glad of that now.

We’ve looked divorce in the eye a couple of times in these 23 years, I’d be lying if I didn’t say those eyes were alluring and I still catch a seductive glance from them now and then. I can’t say with pride that I’m a woman of my word and I made a vow and I’m going to keep it. Nor can I say that I am doing it for the kids or grinning and bearing it. So what’s keeping us together? I can’t speak for James, but for me, it’s love. Real love. The kind that is happy to make the beloved happy and hurts when the beloved hurts. The kind that endures brokenness and offense and strives for forgiveness and reconciliation because it wants to be close to the beloved. I wouldn’t know this kind of love were it not for Christ. I’ve looked around and have seen a few other examples of “love” in the world. None compare to the love of Christ. And his love is in me. And I love James. It’s that love that binds that vow I made before God through every minute of every year with him like flesh and bone and vessels. We were James Dougal and Sheila Deane. And God made us one. We are bound to each other through this life and it’s the love of Christ that binds.

With all that in my heart every day, I woke up today and faced the hard reality of Sundays: I love to gather with Christ’s local church and worship him together and receive his heralded word and my husband does not. And, at this point, neither do my kids. My oldest is more vocal and defiant about it right now. My youngest goes cause he wants to be with mom. This is a deep ache in my heart that spurns a constant pleading with God for salvation to come to this house.

So it was an emotional day. My husband worked in the yard. Connor metal detected for coins in the yard. Ryland worked on a school project. My eyes were heavy with hot tears all day and they spilled out a lot while I sang to Jesus at church and drove between errands alone. I read a Psalm today that defines what I long for in this 23 year old unlikely marriage and precious family:

Oh magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together! -Psalm 34:11

Quieted,

Sheila

Yeah, I’m sitting here playing

I have been sitting here playing around with my blog. My abandoned blog. Turkey is in the oven. Our turkey is farm-raised, free-range from my neighbor across the alley. I watched her grow. The neighbor did the dirty work and traded me 3 loaves of soap for this beauty of a turkey.

Of course, my tried and true method of buying a frozen turkey with that automatic pop-up thermometer that takes the guess work out of when the turkey’s done is out. And it’s not just the blog style or the turkey that’s new this year. I soaked the turkey in a brine this year for the first time. I sure hope it turns out O.K.

I’ve taken a break from soaping for today… although I may just make some avocado soap today… I can’t help myself! Today I’m enjoying my family, rest, the farm, the cool weather, the food and meditating on the wonders of the truth that I am a daughter of God through Christ. That’s a billion universe statement.

I’m thinking of my mom and dad and brother and sister and grandma and mother-in-law and brother-in-law and sister-in-law and nieces and nephews and their families… I’m missing them. I’m praying for them. I’m so thankful for them.

You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever! – Psalm 30:11

Happy Thanksgiving!
Sheila

More Roadtrip Thoughts

Not much time for blog posts on a road trip vacation like this. From the time we reach my sister’s in Redding till we leave Roseburg to head back for our long drive home to AZ, the days are packed full of visiting family.

We’re in Roseburg now, got here late Saturday night. The family worlds all come together here. My dad plays basketball on Saturday nights right down the street from where my house full of nephews live. This is our home base (the house full of nephews, aka the Simmie house) here in Roseburg. On Saturday when we got in, we visited my grandmother in Oakland for a little bit (this is my boys’ great-grandmother) and took the tour of the house she’s living in, which my dad has been working on remodeling for quite some time. My dad does carpentry work well, even though he is a log truck driver, he’s gifted in home construction, furniture carpentry and masonry. He’s made much progress on the house. I’m always amazed at the ability to build things from raw materials.

My grandfather is living with my dad. Ryland is thrilled to find Rockhounding runs in the family. My grandfather (his great-grandfather) has a collection of rocks he inherited from his dad (my great-grandfather) who was a rockhounder, did masonry work and made jewelry. Ryland is thrilled! He spent much time talking to a his mostly-deaf 80 year old great-grandfather about rocks. Ryland doesn’t know it, but my grandfather can probably die happy now. Not another child or grandchild in his family has shown as much care for the rocks he’s kept as Ryland.

My Simmie nephews are all awake now (it’s 11:30 and this is a night-owl house in the summer 🙂 and we’re off to go for a hike in a bit.

Meanwhile, back on the ranch, or back at the Waddell hacienda my husband is holding down a full-time work schedule in a new position at work, trying to install new showers and purchase used appliances, keep our rental house clean while prospective renters come to look at it… amidst all that he says he really misses food. Real food.

We’ll leave very early Friday morning and will be home late this Saturday night. I start my orientation with Phoenix Baptist Hospital on Monday and we have to be moved out of our rental by July 1st. It’s gonna be busy until then.

Quieted,

Sheila

Anticipation

(Pics from last year’s Oregon trip)

We spent almost the entire day at the new house but never managed to see much of each other. The boys were out on the back half of the acre most of the day either digging for treasure, shooting at ant hills with the BB gun, or chasing each other with water guns. James worked on pulling out the old sump pump from the basement and getting a new water softener and water heater from someone on Craigslist while I did the only thing I’m comfortable with in buying a fixer-upper… clean, and played gopher for James when he was at Lowe’s and needed me to measure the pipe sticking up out of the sewage ejector pump and get the model number off the corroded thing. I plugged my nose and did my best. Ugh. I can’t imagine working in the sewage business. Yuck!

Bailey, our black lab, wore herself out chasing a squirrel and sniffing for cottontail bunnies.

By the time we got home all my normal Saturday energies were spent, but I haven’t even begun to do the normal stuff that needs to get done on a Saturday around the house we’re still living in. I have a lot to do this week if I’m going to head to Oregon on the 8th. Monday, after work, I take my physical and do all the HR stuff with Phoenix Baptist hospital. I start orientation on June 24th. Tuesday evening we have the end-of-season baseball party at a laser tag place. Wednesday is my last day at my school nurse job and I get to pick up a friend at the airport. Thursday and Friday will be preparing to leave Saturday for the long drive to Redding, CA to stay with my sister.

I look forward to these trips to Nor Cal and Oregon every year! But I think my boys enjoy it even more. They’re yearly calendar seems to revolve around this trip. They mention it throughout the school year with longing. And as we get to summer, daily they ask, “When are we leaving for our trip to Oregon?” They love the early morning wake-up the day we start out on our road-trip. They anticipate it. They know good times are comin’!

It’s like that as a Christian. Our calendar is built around the celebration of Christ. And life is a pilgrimage and we move through our full days, change of addresses and daily tasks longing for those times when we get to come together and revel in the promises, and tell the Old, Old Story, and rejoice in the gift of Christ, and love one another and Him together, and anticipate the day of the consummation of our longing.

A song for pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem. A psalm of David. I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD.” -Psalm 122:1

And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. -Romans 8:24

Quieted,

Sheila

Just Passin’ Through

It’s been a full four days.

Thursday morning started in AZ at 3am and ended in OR at 11pm. Friday I decorated a reception hall with friends of my mom’s for her wedding reception and drove with my sister and her family to visit my dad an hour away. By the time we got back to our homebase at my cousin Billy’s house in Grants Pass it was late. Saturday I was able to visit with my sister, play with my precious nephews, chop my fair share of veggies for the food my cousin worked so hard to make for my mom’s wedding reception. Saturday after the wedding we were all drained I’m sure. Emotionally and physically. I went to bed at 10:30 and had to be up at 2am Sunday to head to the airport in Medford. Apparently the rule about getting to an airport two hours before your flight leaves does not apply in Medford, Oregon. There were three people sleeping in an empty airport when I arrived at 3:15am. They finally opened the ticket counter at 4.

I got home around 10am today and thought I’d tough it out and go to bed early, but I only made it for about an hour and had to take a nap. It helped, but I feel that overly fatigued feeling I felt when I used to work night shift. Gotta get back on schedule. Tomorrow is back to school!

I was stretched this trip. Outside my comfort zone. I’ve asked for that though. I don’t want to live by my own strength or by what I can see and explain. I want to live by the strength of the Lord and by faith. Building on that foundation laid in Christ. Running the race set before me. Looking to the Author of His-Story in me. And when I’m “outside the camp”, where the Rahabs are and the cross is… where things aren’t so controlled and understood, I know its not by my adequacy or my sufficiency but Christ’s!

For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. – Hebrews 13:14

Quieted,

Sheila

Second living of the past few weeks

I have been planning our yearly summer trip to Oregon, trying to keep a semblance of order yet keep the vacation in our summer break, doing the daily things that keep a home running and in the back of my mind through it all I have blog posts going through my brain. Smile. Sigh.

Time budgeting is much like money budgeting for me. I find if I don’t set aside the allotment for the necessary I’ll spend it all on the unnecessary. But then usually the necessary uses up so much of the budget that there’s not much room for the unnecessary. Writing isn’t unnecessary to me, but if I don’t get up early enough or stay up late enough the opportunity to write is missed. Problem is its usually throughout the day that I think of things I want to write. I find myself jotting down thoughts on scratch pieces of paper or in the many journals I have floating around wherever I go. I have a bunch of pictures of meals I’ve made in iPhoto. One of these days…

There’s a terrible bunch of knotted up muscles descending from my left jaw, down my sternocleidomastoid and trapezius accompanied by a hideous grinding/crepitus sound from the base of my skull on the right side when I turn my head. I’m convinced this is all due to the damaged TMJ on my left side that, after years of gab, grind and grub is permanently flawed. I don’t know what to do about it. Do I see a dentist? A chiropractor? An ENT? A physical therapist? My family practice doc? What would they do about it?

About 2 months ago I started experiencing pain with squatting in my knees- left worse than right. I ignored it and joked about approaching 40. Its gotten worse to the point getting up from a sitting position or sitting down is causing a stabbing pain in my left knee. A week ago we went fishing, I climbed up the rocky trail to our car, pushed off with my left leg in a lunge position and the pain just about brought me tumbling down the trail. Since then, I cannot squat, lunge, sit, climb stairs, get out of my car…anything that involves bearing wait and bending my left knee to a 45 degree angle, without some serious, eye-watering pain. This is really messing with my plans to keep doing Crossfit style workouts 3 days a week. My husband thinks its a torn meniscus. I know what they do for that. I don’t like that option. And I thought men were the stubborn ones when it comes to medical stuff.

I’m only 38, but my body feels things I didn’t expect to feel until my 50’s.

We’re planning to drive the famous Pacific Coast Highway in California, from Morro Bay to San Francisco next week. I love the ocean view. I like mountain views too, but if I had to choose, I’d choose ocean. Desert view isn’t very high up on my list… but it has a beauty.

I am so looking forward to this trip. A Geek Squad guy at Best Buy named Connor (with an O like our Connor who umps Little League) helped us buy a GPS for the trip and wrote out some must-see places in Santa Cruz, San Fran and Half Moon Bay for us to consider stopping at on our trip. Apparently he’s from the area.

At the end of our PCH California trip are my precious nephews, sister and her man. The boys can’t wait to go fishing. I can’t wait to hug my sister and nephews and listen to their sweet voices. I treasure the time I get with my family in Oregon. I wish I could just stop by and visit Aunt Kandace or head to grandma’s house for the day. I’m very thankful for the friends in AZ who have become family to my boys. Nevertheless I wish I could be closer to my mom and dad and family.

After my sister we’ll move up to where my mom, dad, brother, grandmother, grandfather, nieces, nephews, sister-in-love (as opposed to law… saw that written somewhere and loved it!), and house full of more nephews are. We miss them all! My boys would literally move in with the house-full clan if they could! They look up to my now graduated from high school nephew Ethan, and the next in line Nolan. They treasure the play time with Avery and feel like big brothers when they get to be with Liam and Quintin. The always leave that house wishing they had “10 brothers.” Sigh.

I’ve been thinking about what my “voice” is. Writers talk about finding their voice. It feels weird to call myself a writer. I write, but I guess I wouldn’t consider myself a writer unless I was published. Is a person who rides bikes a cyclist? I guess. I feel more comfortable with calling myself a journaler. Maybe that’s my voice. Journaling.

Ann Voskamp is one of my favorite blogger-writers. She’s definitely a writer. Her voice- poetic, encouraging, meditative. I leave her blog encouraged, agreeing.

Pastor Craig is another favorite blogger-writer. In fact, right now, theirs are the only blogs I read regularly. I’ve also read a book from each. Pastor Craig’s voice is humorous, insightful, editorial. I leave his blog smiling every time!

I don’t know what my voice is. A few people have told me I have a different way of putting things that helps them understand. Interesting how that works. Interesting how a person can use words to open doors of understanding.

Hupotosso is a word. We unpacked it a bit using an online Bible Study Tool at the last ladies Bible study for the summer last night.

The Bible really is a living book! It’s inspiration is inexhaustible. God’s word opens doors of understanding that no one can shut and shuts doors of understanding that no one can open. To voluntarily yield yourself to the authority of another is God-like. To fight for your rights is human. To suffer for doing what’s right is divine. To fight back is fallen nature. To entrust yourself to the One who judges justly is Christ-like. To strive to prove you’re right is what we all do. To be a Christian is to be a hupotosso-er. We do not follow a weak, mousy, doormat. We follow the Creator of the Universe who humbled Himself, who bent low to lift us up, who huppotosso-ed and saved us.

I read Ann’s post about an encounter with a stranger in an airport. He asked her what “kind” of Christian she was. Her answer resonated with me:

Isn’t being a Christian rather like being pregnant? You either wholly are or you really aren’t — is there an in between? How did we become known as “kinds” of Christian instead of being simply, humbly, loving Christians? What if following Christ was about a living faith not about wearing faith labels — about living Christ-behaviour, not living in Christian boxes?

Quieted,

Sheila