Wide Wide World

I wanted to be safe

I wanted to get by

I almost lost my edge

I could not fathom why

But You would never let me

Your dangerous side won out

Cause You knew what I wanted

I wanted to get out

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It's a wide wide world

And I almost lost You in it

It's a chance to live

But it almost passed me by

It's an open door

To live for something better

Cause You keep leading me

Into the wide wide world

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Did Moses want to turn back

After crossing the Red Sea?

I bet that he got nervous

I wish that I could see

Cause I've got the shakes all over

And I want to turn around

But I'm twice as scared of missing

The good that can be found

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Cause You are past the borders

Somewhere off the map

Of what feels comfortable

And I am so grateful for that

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It's adventure that we want

And it's what we'll finally get

There's nothing safe about You

But sometimes I forget

So lead me into the wide world

Don't let me miss my chance

Cause I'll blink and it'll be over

And I won't pass here again

One More Time

I was just thinking today about my last outing with my mom. I used to always go grocery shopping with her on Saturday mornings. The last time she's been out of the house (other than to the doctor and Easton's birthday party), was the day after she started her new chemo. We did the usual Walmart shopping that day and ate at Arby's, but we also went a few other places. Nowhere important, just places that the two of us enjoyed going. We went to Half-Price books and Hobby Lobby. Since we got home that day, she's been too tired to leave the house. I miss the days when we would go into a book store and both leave with arms full of books. I loved going to craft stores with her too, even though she always took way longer than I would've liked. If I could have one more outing with her, I wouldn't care how long she took looking at buttons or deciding which color thread matched the best. I wouldn't try to rush her or complain that I was hungry. I just want one more time...

My Rock

I'm feeling a little insignificant tonight. I've been looking at photos from a friend's mission trip and just thinking...what am I doing with my life? Have I done anything of importance? Am I really living for God? I want something else. I NEED something more. I don't want to live a mediocre life. I want to live my life without regretting all the wasted time...

It's taking me a long time to become the person I want to be. The person God wants me to be. I go through each day worried about the future and all the things that I've got going on. Why can't I just slow down? I need to learn to enjoy what I have right here, right now. I'm so worried about everything changing that I'm not living with what I've got now. Life is going to change. So what? You get over it. You move on. Why do I struggle with that so much these days...

I've been stressing over not having anything or anyone to hold onto once all these changes occur. But then it hit me. I don't need anyone. I've got GOD. What could be better than that? So what if everything else seems to fall apart. He'll still be standing there. He'll still be holding my hand. I don't need anything more....He's my all. He's my Rock. That's never going to change. That's all I need.

"Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."
Psalm 27:14

Holding On

It's been a tough day and I can't sleep. I'm still not really sure why I even write these blogs...they make me feel better somehow. I'm kind of in a "I'm losing everyone I care about" mood lately. I really just don't understand life right now or where I'm headed. I watched Cason this morning at my house cause I figured my mom would enjoy seeing him. She did enjoy it, but it just got me to thinking...she will never play with my babies. She'll never see me taking care of mine-feeding them, changing diapers, putting them to sleep...all that good stuff. She won't be there when I have questions about what I should do or what she did with us. I started to wonder if maybe she was thinking the same thing....
Amber fixed my mom's slowly growing hair and did her makeup for Easton's party. Everyone's been saying how she's been looking better lately, and I guess I started to believe it a little. But just getting dressed for the party made her tired today. The party was just next door and she was worn out before we ever got there and had to sit down with me carrying all her tubing. Carrying around an oxygen tank and a vacuum pump isn't the most fun thing in the world....you could see the way everyone looked at her. Staring at how small and frail she is now. How tired she looked. It was weird to see her anywhere but home. All she kept saying was, "When is he gonna open presents?" She just wanted to go home...so I found Amber and told her it was time. He opened them, we left, she went to bed....
Lately I've been having trouble remembering what she was like before she got sick. I see pictures and they don't look like her, but the way she is now isn't her either. I don't know what memory of my mother to try to hold onto. If I can't even remember what she was like before, how am I going to remember everything when she's gone? I'm afraid I'll forget. I'm afraid I won't remember how she moves, how she talks, how she looks. How do you hold onto it all? I've already forgotten how she used to be...I don't want to forget anymore. I don't know how to hold on...
I'm not sure how much time I have left with her. I find myself trying to balance time between a mother that I'm going to lose permanently, and a best friend who's moving half way across the world. I want to spend as much time with each of them as I can...it's just been so hard. I know how much time I have left with one, and the other is unpredictable. I'm not liking so much change....
I've been trying so hard to just trust in God. I know He's got a plan. I know He sees things that I can't and never will. I know all this in my head...it's just hard to see it sometimes when you feel like your whole world is being flipped around. I've given up things and changed what I believe He wanted me to. I'm trying my best and I know that He's blessed me for it. But I still have trouble understanding everything that's going on around me. I know He won't give me more than I can handle...but at the same time I feel like He has. I'm not strong enough on my own. Maybe He's wanting me to depend on Him a little more. I guess I'll just have to keep holding on and wait for this storm to be over.....God, please make it soon.

Lost

So I'm kinda lost right now... I thought I was getting things pretty planned out. I was getting so excited about the chance to go to tanzania, but I just don't know if I can do it. If I go, those 2 weeks will be amazing I know. But I will never be able to get them back. And I don't know if I'll be able to live with that. I thought the whole point of spacing out the chemo was so she wouldn't be so sick all the time, but she already can't get out of bed. I don't even know if she'll be able to make it to her radiation treatment today. It's really frustrating because I feel like I'm finally getting to the age where we can grow closer, only to realize that may never happen. I guess I just didn't expect it to all go downhill so quickly this time. I'm caught a little off guard. I missed my exit this morning just because I was too busy thinking about giving my passport money back. I don't want to see her go through all this again. She doesn't deserve it. If I go and she doesn't start feeling better, who will do things around the house? No one else is helping now so why would they then. The only way I get them to help is by bribing them or asking them when people are over so that they do it to make themselves look good. Can no one see how selfish they're being? I know they're hurting too, but I don't understand how they can say things and then act the way they do...If you love her you'll help. Don't say you want to spend more time with her and then never come home. Ugh...

You are my hiding place

So my last post on this thing was in July...that's a pretty safe bet that no one will check this and read it.

I am frustrated beyond belief right now. I am at the point of tears with no way to hold them back. It's like everything is crumbling around me, but at the same time I know Christ is holding me in His hand. He'll never let me go and I know He has a plan for me, but I really wish I could just figure out what it is. Sometimes I think I know, but I'm never right.

Things with my mom are frustrating...to say the least. It's so hard to know how to feel exactly. You feel sad, but mad. Alone, yet blessed. Selfish, but oh so confused. Tired of waiting, and sick of watching it all slowly unfold. People who haven't been there don't know how to talk to you about it, and that's not there fault. But at the same time you just feel like it would be so much better to just have one person, just one, who kind of gets it. I mean cancer in a way is a blessing. Better than dying unexpectedly in a car crash. You have the time to say goodbye. But is any amount of time ever enough? Either way you are still going to have regrets of how time was spent. With her it's difficult to spend time together. You want alone time, you want memories to hold on to. But she works all day, comes home and does a few things around the house, then goes to bed super early. After her day she is drained. So really there is no time during the week. You want to talk and ask questions about things you don't know...but you don't want to ask them awkwardly like "Hey, you won't be here to tell me later so tell me now." You don't know how to talk, how to share, how to feel.
It's easy to get frustrated when friends talk about getting married or wanting to have kids when you know she won't be there to tell you how her pregnancies were, or how it was when she got married young. What it was like raising 6 kids and how she made it through. When you know she won't be there to make baby blankets for your children, or those goofy towel things that go on the refrigerator handles. I think it makes it harder when everyone tells you that you look like her or that you're like her in a lot of ways. I'm not trying to be proud or selfish or whatever, but I am more like her than anyone else. I look the most like her, I act the most like her, I think like her, I enjoy a lot of the same things she does. In fact, I wish I was even more like her. I want to learn more things from her, to find out more things about her life. But how do you ask? How do you ask her to teach you something when she knows you're only asking cause she's dying.
I want her to be a grandma for my kids. I want them to get to know her the way I know her.

Things just don't seem right. I've been doing pretty good, reading my bible everyday. I let go of my missions dream because I thought maybe I only wanted what someone else had. I wanted to be too much like them because of how wonderful their life seemed to be. But then today, hearing about a trip just felt like a tug at me heart. But I think I'm just mistaken. I can't be cut out for it. No one would support it anyway. And if I plan it and she goes downhill...I can't have that. Maybe it will always be just a dream...just something I'll hear stories about.

Then of course there's the boy. Sometimes I can't see myself ever being away from him...but some days I don't even know who he is. He just seems to get mad at me so easily, I don't know how to stay on his good side. He says he doesn't feel close to me anymore, and maybe he's right. He complains that I don't kiss him enough, we don't have enough couple time, and that he just doesn't feel like I really care about him sometimes. I don't know what he wants from me. I ask him and he doesn't know. Well if he doesn't, then how am I supposed to? I give him my reasons for the things I do but they are never good enough. I don't want to mess up again...but he doesn't seem to understand. He never seems to understand my feelings on anything. Not until way after the fact and we get in a fight. I want him to be a better christian so he can be the spiritual leader in the relationship, but he doesn't understand why it's the guys job. Some days I think that maybe he's not right for me...but I don't see anyone else out there who would be. But I need him. When she's gone, I'll need him and his family more than ever. It's not that I don't love him, I just wish he didn't get so mad at me. I just wish he would try to understand more sometimes. But other times he is wonderful, and I couldn't love him more. So I guess no relationship is perfect. I love him and we'll work out all the rest....I just wish he would support me in whatever I want to do. That's what I'm trying to do for him...I just want the same thing in return.

"You are my hiding place; You will protect me from trouble, and surround me with songs of deliverance."
-Psalm 32:7

Brokenhearted

Wow it's been a looooong time! I forgot I even had this thing!

So life has been pretty good. At the beginning of the summer I started a Beth Moore bible study called Breaking Free with my amazing friend, Darbi. I must admit that at the beginning it was really tough to get into it because each day takes atleast 30 min. I wasn't used to spending that much time with God as sad as that sounds...but after the first few days I really began to enjoy it and I feel like I've grown so much closer to God. You always hear that you need to read your Bible daily, and I've tried it but it's hard to find time. But I never knew just how big of a difference spending time with God everyday would make. He's amazing! I'm now beginning week 5 of the study and although somedays are hard to get through, I usually am excited about what I'm going to learn that day..I've never really been like that before! Well today's lesson was about mending broken hearts. "He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted"-Isaiah 61:1. Just about everyone has had their heart broken in some way...and it is more painful than anyone can possibly describe. This lesson was a tough one because it's so hard to completely turn your heart over to God and let Him fix it...we just want to hold onto it and try to fix it ourselves. But the part of the lesson that was so amazing to me (Darbi pointed it out) is that when God applies pressure to our bleeding heart, the pain gets even worse. But then the bleeding stops. I thought I had turned my heart over to God, but during this lesson the pain in my heart was so bad I thought it was breaking again. Maybe that is God applying the pressure...or maybe I haven't fully given Him every piece of my heart yet. Either way, I know that for my broken heart to be healed, I have to give God all the pieces and trust that He will put it back together again and have it in better shape than I ever did on my own. God is so amazing....I don't know how I went so long just living to typical Christian life of going to church and that was it. God gave me life, so I am going to give my life back to Him. Sometimes it's hard to trust Him with it because, as humans, we like to be in control. But God can run our lives so much better than we can even imagine.

So I'm still pretty nervous about going off to school....but having gone down there twice with some friends and visiting the College Life House I'm less afraid than before. I know that there are some pretty amazing people there who only want to follow God with everything they have. I've seen how much my friends have grown since they've gotten there and I can't wait to grow like that! I already feel like I've learned some things just the two times I've gone there. On Sunday I did something that I would ordinarily never do! When I went to church at Rocky Point the preacher decided that he wasn't supposed to preach that day, so they passed microphones around and had ppl talk about how they'd been blessed. One little girl in the balcony stood up where I couldn't see her and asked for prayers for her mamma because she was having cancer surgery and she didn't know if she would make it. I knew exactly how that little girl felt...and I had this urge to talk with her. But this was the first time I had been to this church and I had no idea who the little girl was and I couldn't even see her. But after a while I decided I wanted to find her. So I asked my friend, Jake, if he knew her cause I wanted to talk to her. He didn't, but during the invitation we went up to the balcony to find her. We did and Jake told her we wanted to pray with her. I talked to her and found out that her mother, Shannon, was about to have her 3rd surgery and she was scared she wouldn't make it. Wow. My mom had 3 surgeries too and I was scared of the same thing. So I did something that I've only done one other time in my life...I prayed out loud! It was just her, Jake, and me (and anyone else who might have heard me), but I was soooo nervous! But I decided that I wouldn't let that stop me because I knew that all this wasn't just a coincidence....so I prayed the saddest excuse for a prayer that anyone has probably ever heard and stumbled over my words a lot! It really was pitiful lol. And the whole way back down the stairs my heart was still pounding...had I made a mistake in doing that? I really thought maybe I had...but then I decided that was just the devil trying to discourage me. I knew in my heart that I had done what God wanted, even if it wasn't the best prayer in the world. Jake knew I was nervous and he prayed with me after that and said that was a pretty cool thing I did. That made me feel a little bit better...God can work through people. I don't know if us going to talk to that girl made any difference in her day at all, but I still did what God asked. And I know I would have regretted it for a long time if I had ignored that feeling I had. I've never had a feeling quite like that! But don't get me wrong, none of what happened was because of me. God did it all. He never ceases to amaze me....

Ok I'm going to bed! Gnight!