It's ok to grieve

In June my mother will have been gone from this earth for three years. It doesn't seem like it's been that long. Some days I roll through life perfectly fine, thinking of how she would have loved this or that, how much she would enjoy the beautiful weather.  And then others, for seemingly no reason at all, I will find myself struggling with even mundane tasks, like running errands.  She'll pop into my mind, my throat will constrict, and tears fill my eyes.  And suddenly I am struggling to keep it together.  

Grief in silhouette by Tim Green

When someone you love dies, no one gives you a manual.  You're usually given three days off of work to grieve them, and then it's back to the daily grind.  When my grandmother died, I thought the grief process ended that suddenly. That after just a little grieving you turned off your emotions and got back to the business of living.  Aside from her funeral and that first week or so, I can't remember ever seeing my mother or her sisters cry.  I thought they were over it, that it was done.  It wasn't until my mama died that I realized how wrong I was.  I was sitting at my Aunt Sue's house talking with her about when Granny (as we called her) died, and she began to cry.  I was shocked at first, and then so relieved.  I told her exactly what I just told you. That I thought they had gotten over it and just moved on. I had thought I must be doing something wrong because I was still upset over a year later.  She looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, "No".  

Light after Darkness by Jhong Dizon

It was like a switch flipped on in my brain. Grief isn't something you just do for a little while. It's something you will do the rest of your life, in different ways.  And that is OK. It's OK that sometimes I need to break down and cry. It's OK that sometimes I can remember sweet times with mama and be happy. There is no right or wrong way to do this, and best of all, there's no time limit. I don't have to "get over it" and move on.  I just have to live, one day at a time, sometimes one moment at a time, and living is all mama would want from or for me.  Just to keep going and live my life.

To each her own~

My entire life I learned that marriage was 50/50, a partnership. But I heard something a few years ago that completely changed my views on marriage.  Marriage isn't 50/50, it isn't even 100/100.  It's more like an ever shifting plane. Some days you give 90%, some days you give 10, but the thing about it is this: you both have to give all you have every day. Because when you're both giving all you have, then all you have is enough.

I absolutely love marriage helps. I have an entire board on Pinterest dedicated to them. For years I poured all that I was into being the best mother that I could be. Sometimes I succeeded, sometimes I failed, but my marriage would often take a back seat. And now that our kids are grown, I want to give that same dedication to my husband.

It's seems like I'm not the only person interested in making things great with my significant other. In the last few months I've read articles on Why You Should Have Sex Every Night, Why You Shouldn't Have Sex Every Night, Things Every Woman Should Know,  Things Every Man Should Know, and Why Your Spouse Should Always Come First (woops!). You know what I have learned from all of this reading?  Nobody knows anything about your relationship except you and your partner. That's it. Everyone else can have tons of opinions about what will make it better, but the only two people that know how to make it work are you. So ask for advice, read up on what works best for others, but in the end, it's the two of you. And marriage works when you work. So work it.

I still believe

This is the second in a two part series

A few years after the whole poem fiasco my uncle was singing in the little church when he had a massive heart attack and died. After that our attendance there slowly dwindled to nothing.  As my parents church attendance had been spotty, so was ours from that point forward. 

Ryk Neethling/Flikr

While my church attendance wasn't "up to par" my relationship with Jesus was doing well. I was praying and studying my bible daily. And then our kids introduced us to an online game. Over the next few years it consumed our family. All of us played, often together, and nothing was as important as playing the game.  During this time I met an atheist who was firm in his belief that there was no God. He posed some interesting questions, ones that I didn't have answers to. And so I began to wonder myself. Was I just believing this because I had been raised in it? Why did I believe that there was a "mystery man" in the sky who would protect me? 

My struggle began there. I first started investigating why I believed God existed. The best answer I could come up with at the time was "because I just know" Which, as you may realize, didn't get me very far. To me he's in the sunrise and the sunset, in the perfect elliptical orbits of the planets, the distance between the sun and the earth, the earth and the moon, the rise and fall of the tides. But to my atheist friend, all of this could be explained by science. My faith faltered, what if I was wrong? Look how far science had come in just the last 50-75 years. What if in the next 100 years they could explain so much more?  

Hubble Sweeps a Messy Star Factory - NASA

The easiest thing for me to do was to search for Jesus. Because, in my faith, Jesus is my salvation. I couldn't prove that God was real, but could I prove that Jesus existed.  Could I do it outside of the bible? Could I find evidence that Jesus was who he said he was without turning to the one book that atheists scorn so?  I wondered. 

To type out everything that I learned would take about 20 posts. But I would like to share with you a couple of things that I did discover. Jesus is mentioned in many historical documents, almost always in passing. The most notable of these are in the writings of Josephus and Tacitus, both respected historians.  Josephus said of Jesus: 

About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the trut gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Christ. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing among us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvelous things about him. And the tribe of Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared. 

The passages in italics are debatable. That is to say, it is likely those were added by early Christian copyists, and were not written by Josephus.  On the whole, though, this passage is believed to be authentic by many scholars.

Tacitus wrote:

Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstitution, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome...Accordingly, an arrest was first made of tall who pleaded guilty: then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. 

Rather than bore you with a long list of other minor mentions I will sum up what I learned. If we threw out the New Testament (which are biographies and historic letters), and other Christian writings there are still some major points we can glean from historic references about Him.

1. Jesus was a Jewish teacher
2. Some people believed he was the Messaiah
3. He was rejected by the Jewish leaders
4. His enemies acknowledged he performed unusual feats. (healings, exorcism)
5. He was crucified under Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius
6. Despite his death his followers believed that he was still alive.
7. His followers multiplied rapidly and spread as far as Rome. 
8. Many people worshiped him as God

Honestly with my bible background, and what I knew from that, that was enough for me.  He existed, he died in the manner that my bible says he did, and his disciples continued to worship him even when facing death. They truly believed that he was the Messaiah. And if Jesus exists, well then so does God. 

While I tried to find evidence for Jesus outside my bible, I came to one interesting conclusion. Excluding the bible is a little silly, honestly. If these books weren't religious writings they would be honored as historical documents.  

I found this site helpful in my research.

Dear Mama,

I'm going to be a grandma. Things are going so fast since you left us, mama. I wish you could meet Brittany. You would love her. She's sweet, and country, and perfect for Shane. I think this is the first time he's ever truly been in love. And I'm so thankful that God put her in his life.

My family is growing by leaps and bounds mama. It's amazing how fast it happened. Matt has found himself a wonderful girl. We just got to meet her last week. She's from Wisconsin, her name is Melissa. And she's a sweetheart. She would remind you a lot of me. She talks super fast, which I love. Finally someone who can keep up with me.

Amanda has a new love as well, Isaiah. They're planning on getting married. She asked him. I know that doesn't surprise you a bit, she's an assertive little fart. Always has been. Oh, and they've all moved out. But don't worry, I'm not alone. Hunter and Lolo are here most days. So I am plenty active. And when they go home I turn off the TV, put on some music, and chill.  It's so nice mama. I'm working on getting healthy. I want to live to a ripe old age. I hope I can live up to the huge shoes that you left to be filled. You were the best grandma I have ever seen. I hope I can be half as good as you were.

Love you mama, miss you always,

I believe

This will be the first in a two-part series. 

I was having a conversation with my daughter a week or two ago. And I can't remember everything that was said but I recall we were talking about salvation. And she told me that she had never heard my testimony. Which is basically a fancy way of saying why I believe what I believe. So I told it to her, and I wanted to share a short version with you. I also want to clarify exactly what I believe, because I had a friend point out that they had no idea what I believe when it comes to my faith, and that saddens me. I should have done a better job representing my beliefs, I suppose.

I grew up in a Christian home. I can't remember us ever going to church regularly. It just wasn't something that we did. But I also can't remember a time that we didn't study the bible or just know that God existed, and that Jesus died for us. There was a lot of vacation bible school, and I remember a church near where we lived once picked us (the kids) up for Sunday service.

When I was 26 years old I had a series of very disturbing dreams. Most of them about the end of the world. I remember in one I could feel Jesus calling my spirit. And I felt it trying to leave my body but something was holding me back. In another these huge meteors were raining down from the sky, destroying everything. I could see someone standing on a hill looking down. I thought, at the time in the dream, that it was Jesus. And I can't describe what he looked like to you, because I can't remember. I just knew it was him. Kind of like you know your parents or your children. The thing that I took away from these dreams was that I wasn't who I thought I was. To me, at the end of each dream, I always knew that I wasn't a Christian. I hadn't accepted Jesus as my Lord. Having grown up in a household where Jesus was just always present, I had assumed that by simply knowing him, I was a Christian. I knelt by my bed after the second dream and asked God to forgive me. I accepted Jesus into my heart that night.

Meteor by Brandon Stricker

Now a few years later Hubby and I were members of a little non-denominational church. I was basically running the youth group, but he had the title. Because this was a church that believed women should know their place. (And it wasn't as a leader in the church in any way) We had been members there for quite a while and were very active. I sought out anything that I could do to serve the church, telling myself I just wanted to be a witness for God. It wasn't until years later that I realized it wasn't God's approval I was seeking. At the time I was good friends with most of the members, as this was a small church. When I would sing they would tell me what a great job I had done. They would say they appreciated my work with the youth group. Which honestly had a varying number of people, but never over six. I was eating the praise up. The more they bragged on me, the more I wanted. I began to write poetry to read in church. It felt good to have people tell me what a great job I was doing. I loved the attention and craved it.

Easter Sunday one year I wrote a poem about the crucifixion. Hubby asked to read it before we went to church, I told him he could wait and hear it with everyone else. I was so sure of myself. I stood at the front of the church and cried reading it. I would post it here for you to see, but it was long since destroyed. I remember, clear as day though, the part that finally made me realizing I wasn't living to serve God, I was living for the accolades. There was a line in this point that said something about bones broke, my sin he bore. You know what didn't happen to Jesus on the cross? None of his bones were broken.

I knew this. But I had gotten caught up in making this poem as dramatic as possible. I wanted people to be in tears, as I was when I read it. And I wanted, most of all, for them to tell me how much it had affected them. When I finished reading, I looked up and the entire church was silent. I hadn't even realized my mistake at this point. I took my seat smug in the knowledge that they were all speechless in the emotion that I had elicited.

When church was over and I asked hubby, "Did you like my poem?"
"Most of it"
"What didn't you like?"
"There were no bones broken during the crucifixion, honey."
My house of cards came tumbling down. My embarrassment was a palpable thing. Why didn't I think? In my search for a pat on the back, I had made a fool of myself. To the church's credit, none of them judged me. We continued going to that church but I slowly melted into the back ground. All of a sudden attention wasn't nearly as important to me as it had been.

"You're going to lose that though"

Here we are on year three of my roller coaster weight loss plan. And once again I'm trying, but yesterday my "want to" got a huge boost. One of the major things that kills me in my journey is confidence. I have none. In the back of my mind, I'm always waiting to fail, and pretty sure I will.

By Sander van der Wel from Netherlands, via Wikimedia Commons

But yesterday something happened that changed that for me. Hubby and I were in town looking at kayaks. We've often talked about how we'd like to "someday" go kayaking together. So we're walking around looking at some and hubby is trying to find one with a wide bottom because, apparently(?), they're more stable. I made the comment that "It's going to need a really wide bottom to accommodate my wide bottom" To which he replied, "You're going to lose that though."  Just like that, it wasn't a command, or an insult. It was just a statement of faith. He knew I was going to lose it, that's it. No doubt.

Photo by: John Liu/Flicker

I can't tell you how good that made me feel. All of a sudden I wasn't hoping I could do it this time. I knew I could. I know I can. Hubby has never really cared what I weigh. He loves me completely, and always has. He did when I was 140lbs, and he did when I was 311lbs. But knowing that he believes in me, that he knows I am capable of getting healthy, well that gave me a huge incentive to stay the course, to do my very best. So yes, I'm going to lose that, and we're going to buy a couple of kayaks. And my someday is coming.