Thursday, February 2, 2012

New Purpose

I started this blog four years ago for several reasons. The first was because it was a popular thing to do. Everyone had a blog and I wanted to be among them. The second reason was that I've always like to write. A blog seemed a perfect way to show my creative and witty side.

Now, four years later I've decided to re-visit this for such different reasons. I'd actually forgotten I'd even had a blog. I began an online search for journal software. I wanted a place to write out my thoughts and get them OUT of my head. I can't really even remember how the blog thing works. Do people still do this? Do others still read them?

With that being said I'm not sure where to start or what to say. I'm not sure if I should write like someone is reading it, or write for myself. I'm not sure how to make my thoughts clear, but if my purpose is to simply get my thoughts out of my head then they don't need to be in any order.

I keep thinking of the song by MercyMe "Bring the Rain" the first line says "I can count a million times people askin me how I can praise You, after all that I've gone through. The question just amazes me, could circumstances possibly change who I forever am in YOU?" I think this line better describes my life than anything I can write. And if I'm honest, this is why I hesitate to write so much of what I feel and think. Big picture, I'm great...big picture, my faith is rock steady...big picture, my hope is secure...big picture, I never doubt... big picture, I know that I am forever a child of God because scripture says that I am joint heirs with Jesus. It's not the big picture that keeps me up at night. It's not the big picture that causes me to need to get my thoughts out of my head. It's the world and the trials I face here and how they overwhelm my heart and life that cause me to feel like I'm going to burst. I'm scared that some would look at me on a down day and NOT see my hope in Jesus. I'm scared that when I begin to be honest about how I feel that it would in any way look like I don't have complete trust in my savior and that I know that He is working out things for the good in my life. But, I've come to realize that I'm not hiding anything from God. When I'm mad at Him, I tell Him I'm mad or sad or any other emotion. He created me, He formed me, He loves me and He knows me. And I know that I am most certainly not the only person to feel how I feel. So, I've decided I'm going to just write the truth. The truth about how things happened and how I feel.

It's ironic to look back on the few posts that I managed to post here. I posted about my family, my church, and my home. In so many ways I long to go back to four years ago.
Four years ago, I was living in a small single wide mobile home behind my grandparents house. My grandpa had fallen and fractured his back and needed us to help. It was a temporary move that ended up lasting ten years. It was a cramped little house and my kids were bursting out of the one tiny room they shared. I was stressed for most of the time we spent there and trying to remember to live life to the fullest while still caring for my aging grandparents, my kids, my husband, my college work, my job... Growing up I always had a special relationship with my paternal grandparents that none of the other grandkids had. I'm not sure when I realized this but by the time I was living next door to them I knew I had something special that I would always cherish. When Papaw passed away in 2007 my heart tore a little. My Aunt Laura and I always joked about how our family was just like the Kennedy's, only we weren't rich, successful, and good looking. We did seem to have more horrible events happen in our family than of those around us. My Uncle Charlie was killed in a car accident when my dad was twelve years old. My Mamaw slid head first into a depression that would rule her life until the day she died. My dad was defined by loosing his brother in ways that I can now understand more than I'd like. When we lost Daddy I was fourteen years old, my sister barely nine. I was sure that my life was over then, not seeing any way I could possibly live without my Daddy. But, I'd not taken into account how much strength God was about to give my Mama. She became our rock, working two jobs, keeping us in line and talking straight to us about how we felt. My Uncle Dick and my Papaw were more apart of our lives than ever, stepping in to make sure Christina and I always had a loving man in our lives. We loved those two men with such ferocity and like so many people who go through a tragedy like we did with our dad we felt safe. We'd had our share of grief and had nothing to worry about. Two sons in one family had been lost surely we didn't need to stress. Maybe it was this mindset that created a huge feeling of unbelief when we learned that Uncle Dick had passed away after a surgical procedure. My Mamaw gave birth to five babies and she buried three of them, and then a few short years later she buried her husband.

Through all this grief and loss my family did what families do. We cried, and mourned. We wept and screamed. We held each other up when one of us started to fall and we lived our lives. Brad continued to lead the youth at our church and I helped as I could. We made friends and lost friends. Each of us searched for God and His will for our lives. Both of our kids were saved and Ethan accepted God's call on his life to preach. Life became steady, although we had daily trials and struggles. Nothing, however, could prepare us for what has become the worst year in our lives. 2010.

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