Messy (2014)

Life is messy.

No big shocker to any parent out there.

Any janitor, nurse, school teacher, pastor, emergency personnel, student, victim, prisoner, beauty queen....

Anyone really.

Life just IS messy.

I've been on a journey this last two weeks with a dear friend of mine that I have know for going on decades. She and I decided that we needed more levity and reality in our days and decided to send a first-thing-in-the-morning NO PREP selfie to each other every morning.

Every Morning.

Yep. We sit up and snap it.

I will spare my sweet, similarly-quirky friend, (you know who you are and what you look like already), but I won't be so guarded with myself.

This is some of what I send:

I don't usually spend much time looking back at these, once is enough... or so I thought.

After I took this morning's picture, (the last one shown above), I was stunned for a moment at how closely it resembled how I looked in high school.

High school was not pleasant for me. I don't usually talk about it much because it was so painful and, well, messy.

By my Junior year I was addicted to alcohol and drugs of various sorts, (nothing IV due to a horrific overdose I witnessed earlier on), and I was looking for acceptance and my idea of love at any cost.

I was lost in the most profound way.
 
In the Autumn of 1991 I looked nearly identical to that photo, except that I was 14 pounds lighter and my eyes wouldn't have been that open...

It was right before I shaved my head to avoid being recognized by private detectives who were hired by my family to find me.

I was a runaway.

As long as I can remember I ran away. If life got messy I would go somewhere and hide.... in the towel closet, in the basement, in the upstairs attic space, in a nearby gulley under a giant willow tree....

Finding places to hide, to create a new reality even if just for a moment, came easy.

Facing difficulty head on did not.

I remember the first time my world shifted in a never-going-back kind of way.

The day my Grammaw Freda died.

I was at her house, as I often was, and we were just about to start a sewing project to mend a vintage Barbie gown.

She was an amazing seamtress... She could create or mend ANYTHING.

It always appeared as if there was nothing she couldn't do.

So, when she told me that she had to take care of something on the roof before the rain got going I didn't even bat my little 8 year old eyes.

She left the room with her Keds on, and at 68 years old she climbed up on the roof to clear a blocked gutter that cloudy Portland day....

Her husband had been a construction man. He built brick homes in North Carolina, many of which are still there today. He also was someone who could do anything.

Well, except beat Leukemia.

He died at 52, leaving my Grammaw a widow at 53.

But in all my time with her at that little grey house on 39th Ave., I never once heard her complain about being alone. She just did what needed to be done.

And that day the gutter needed clearing.

So she went out to do it...

and didn't come back.

Oh, I saw her again for a little bit, when I ran out to see what the loud clanging of the ladder on the gutter had been....

When I ran to her side there on the grass just beginning to show signs of the rain....

When the men I alerted from across the street carried her ever so gently into her house and onto the couch out of the storm she had known was coming...

And the last words she spoke to me were,

"Bless your little heart...."

It was messy in the worst kind of way.

That singular event sent my life into a tailspin that nearly took me off the radar several times.

Who knew that it was all connected?

My parent's divorce when I was 4, losing my dear Grammaw at 8, self-image obliterating abuse at 11, suicide attempt at 13, abortion at 15, anorexia and full blown drug addiction by 16, and then the association with evil men with even worse intentions and the overdose that was carefully orchestrated by the Enemy of My Soul to forever render me silent...

JESUS KNEW.

He knew all along.

He saw every tear, heard every curse word, sat by my side as I took another drink, another drug, another chance with the life I had no idea was a gift.

He never left me.

Not once.

I truly believe that's why when I called out to Him in the foggy frigid air of the San Francisco bay that November night in '91 He answered me so quickly...

He was right there...

The messes of our lives are so good at clouding out His presence, His love, His voice.

I look back now with new eyes and a soft heart and I can see his finger prints everywhere.

Even on THAT day, kneeling next to the woman that I loved more than my own life, with her can-do heart and her eyes the shade of the West Virginia skies she was born and raised under.

I know what His presence feels like now, because I draw near to Him every. single. morning. Not because I have to, but because I GET TO. I WANT TO.

Like my sweet, honest, REAL friend.... He loves me at my messiest, He always has.

He always will.

Beauty from ashes is His specialty and binding up the brokenhearted is Who He Is.

Take heart if you are reading this and are grieving. The tears running down my face even now bear witness that the pain does fade, but it doesn't ever leave.

There IS however joy in the morning....

I thank God for real friends, for real hope, for REAL redemption, and the real promise of his ever present love.

Jesus is there. 

Jesus is here.

Even in the messy.....


Psalm 34:18 "The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed."
 
~Me

Staying Home

It's been 25 years since I left my childhood home.

Large windows, green shutters with matching flower boxes, white stately columns out front. Rhododendrons, pink dogwood tree, doorknobs that looked like diamonds, and wallpaper that was patterned like a cowboy's red bandana.

A beautiful Craftsman style house built in 1908... long before my time.

Home.

The place I was brought as a newborn, where I learned to crawl, to walk, to roller skate.

I skinned my knees on the sidewalk out front for the very first time.

I learned to ride my bike on that street, ground the bricks that were crumbling along a neighbors driveway for blush with a mariposa blossom as my applicator, befriended elderly artists and made pottery in their hidden studio.

I remember the munchkin sized door under the stairs that led to storage in reality, but I had dreams of another land under those stairs.... if only I could have found the key.

I can see my sister standing at the top of the long staircase with her purple eyeshadow and Farrah Fawcett hair. Her smile was perfect to me and her eyes more beautiful than Bambi's.

I knew every board that made up our fence, every knot hole that was my height at any given year that I could peer through into the massive garden behind us.

The memories are more good than bad now that 25 years have gone by. I don't think there's been a single day that I haven't missed it in one way or another.

We called it 'The Big House'.

In the last quarter of a century I have lived more places than I care to remember, some I actually think I have completely forgotten. (Thank you Lord.) But I do know that I haven't had the same adress for more than a few years a time in all those years.

I adopted a gypsy mentality out of necessity after bouncing from place to place more than a handful of times. I made it a sort of adventure and purposed to not become attatched to any one place knowing the pain that would come if I allowed myself to grow roots only to have to rip them out again.

It was effective for years. A tried and true survival technique.

But ya know what?

It got lonely.

I made friends, got involved at churches, my kids made friends, we started to know our neighbors, grow a garden, learn where all the best places to walk or ride our bikes were.... and then we'd have to leave.

I didn't have much control, if any, over so many of those moves. It was painful watching my kids have to endure the jostling for no real good reason.

And then there was the move in 2011 when my new husband Rick and I lost our home in California after the market crash in 2009.

Rick and I had talked about all of this jostling and unstable circumstances before we married in '09. We both had a deep desire to have roots somewhere and allow the last 3 kids in our care to have a permanent place they could call home, so when we realized we were not going to be able to keep the home we were in it was a real step of faith moving from California to Washington State.

We clearly heard the call of God on us to move here. We both had peace for sure, but we had NO IDEA how all of it would work. We knew we were losing our home, and any potential equity in it, we knew that we would have to relocate Rick's buisness, and we knew we needed to have a home in Washington within ten months of our moving there.

Can I just say that THE LORD BLEW THE DOORS OFF? 

We have known that the house we have been living in is nothing short of a miracle. It's a long story, but just so I don't kill you with curiosity:

1. We prayed and asked God to show us where He wanted us.

2. My husband felt led to a particular home.

3. I repeatedly reminded him that this wasn't a rental, that it was for sale, and it was a REALLY nice home that was probably out of our price range even if it were for rent.

4. My husband contacted the realtor anyway. (I love this man.)

5. We wrote a letter explaining our entire situation to the owners.

6. Our 13 year old son went in for a five and a half hour heart surgery the day after we mailed the letter.

7. I promptly forgot the letter AND the house.

8. The owners contacted the realtor and wanted to work with us based on the letter.

9. I wept like a baby IN PUBLIC when we got that news.

10. Without references, financial records, or any other proof of who we are, a deal was struck for us to be in a lease/purchase agreement at a rate that is truly unbelievable.

11. We have lived here for the last two and a half years.

12. It has become Home.

Okay, now that that's out of the way...

The agreement was more than fair, and both parties have honored it.We based our timing on our anticipated income, which was based on an established pattern that stretched over more than a decade.

But things don't always go the way we anticipate do they?

Relocating a buisness is hard. Establishing a client base is hard. Making a name for yourself in a new area is hard.

The last year and a half have been some of the hardest my husband has ever seen professionally. It's been tough to say the least. But he keeps his hand to the 'plow' and isn't a quitter, he will succeed. I know it. He's one of the most talented people I have ever known, and he's great with people.

It just takes time.

But now we are up against a serious challenge: our agreement is up in 90 days. We have until the end of November to secure a loan for the balance of the purchase price of our home.

For a several reasons, that will take a miracle.

I believe in miracles...

Everytime I see my son running down the field, his frame loaded with gear, jumping to catch a football... the same son who had the cardiac surgery that wasn't successful... I see a miracle.

When I look at my grandson and see the smiles on his teenaged mom and dad's face even though they are facing hard times themselves, I see a miracle.

When I see my father-in-love pull up and park in our driveway for a family dinner after having had hemorrhages in his eyes that were supposed to leave him unable to see, I see a miracle.

Truth be told, everytime I look at any of my children, at my father, at my husband... when I look in the mirror, I see a miracle.

I know that the Lord led us here, there is no doubt about it. Only He could do what has been done here.

It's the first place in these many years that has truly felt like home to me. Our home.

My prayer is that we could stay.

He knows the details, and I trust His will for sure.

But He says to 'come boldly before the throne', so I'm coming...

...come with me?

2 Sam 7:11b
"The Lord Himself will establish a house for you..."