So we didn’t eat out and the credit card was saved that expense.  We went home and ate hamburger helper. And today, when we got paid, I sat down to pay bills saw how much money I had for groceries the next two weeks… and I was thankful my husband talked me out of eating out yesterday. 

See, we are really trying to get our finances under control after all the health issues we had last year.  Rebuild our savings, pay off the credit card (whoops), etc.  It would be much easier if we didn’t have three weddings – two of which I’m an integral part of – and a new dog.  Trust me, I am not complaining, I’m blessed to be a part of this important day for two people I care deeply for.  And the new dog is adorable to watch.  I’m just saying, it’s hard to save money when you want to spend extra money on fun stuff.  Saving money is not fun.  But sparkly things (and things that go ruff! ruff!) are definitely fun.

Luckily, my husband is a strong man who stands by me as I pout about not eating out.  And pout about not buying cute shoes. And pout about not eating steak anymore.  In the long run, he makes my life much, much more rich!

I would like someone to write a song, please.  I don’t have the skill for songwriting.  I would like you to model it after “Does Anybody Hear Her?” by Casting Crowns.  I would like you to tell a different side of the story.

She is trying but the canyon’s ever widening
In the depths of her cold heart

The song is about a broken woman who wants love and acceptance and help from the people of the church but does not get the help she needs.  I would like you to write a song about the people who offer love and acceptance and help to a broken person… to no avail. 

So she sets out on another misadventure just to find
She’s another two years older
And she’s three more steps behind

I would like you to talk about how heartbreaking it is to sit beside them and watch them run in the wrong direction.

Does anybody hear her? Can anybody see?
Or does anybody even know she’s going down today?

I would like you to talk about having an opportunity to help them.  About how scary it is when they move in to your world and how happy and hopeful you are that this time, this time it will be different.

Under the shadow of our steeple
With all the lost and lonely people
Searching for the hope that’s tucked away in you and me
Does anybody hear her? Can anybody see?

Sometimes we do see.  Sometimes we see the hurting, and the broken, and the bruised.  Sometimes we say to ourselves: Hey, we should be like Jesus and try to help them.  Sometimes they ask for help and you see an opportunity.

 She is yearning for shelter and affection
That she never found at home

So we invite them into our world.  We take them to church.  We hug them and cry with them.  We feed them and clothe them and pray for them and with them.  Sometimes it works for a while. 

She is searching for a hero to ride in
To ride in and save the day

Sometimes you tell them their worth and they nod, and they smile, but they don’t believe it.  You tell them to have faith in their own worth.  You tell them that they are God’s precious and loved child, and their lips say “I know” while their heart can’t believe it yet.

You pray for them.  You kneel at your bed and you cry for their soul.  You pray that God will give you the words you need to reach them in the midst of their brokenness. 

And in walks her prince charming
And he knows just what to say
Momentary lapse of reason
And she gives herself away

And then… then they tell you that they’re leaving.  That they’ve found another path, another way out, one that doesn’t involve the hard work of facing the pain.  They’re leaving so they don’t have to deal with someone loving them, but telling them that they need to make better (and admittedly more difficult) choices.

If judgment looms under every steeple
If lofty glances from lofty people
Can’t see past her scarlet letter
And we’ve never even met her

You watch them go.  Despite the sacrifice of time and energy you watch them leave.  You know it’s fruitless.  You know they’re not ready to change.  You’ve seen for some time now that your argument was ineffective. 

One of the worst parts about this, in my opinion, is that when it’s all said and done there is a small part of you that is relieved it’s over.  Don’t get me wrong: the overwhelming emotion is grief and sadness.  But there is also relief tinged with guilt – relief that your time of sacrifice is over, and guilt at being relieved.  How can you be relieved they’re going back to their broken life?  But you’re human, and you’re glad that this means less stress and sacrifice to you and your family.

And there’s a bit of doubt.  Did I try hard enough? Did I show them enough love? Could I have changed the situation a bit and had more success?

The important thing to remember here, and the thing I have to remind myself, is that I can’t fix anyone.  I can’t make them better.  Only God can.   That is what I hold on to.  When I feel all these emotions so strongly, I remind myself that God is the great physician and we are his broken church.  Ultimately, He is the one who heals.  We just point people in His direction.    

So, dear reader, if you decide to write a song about one of the other sides of “Does Anybody Hear Her” then please make sure you talk about how in the end, God is the great transformer…not us.  I know I’m asking a lot, and I know you probably won’t write a song about such a sad and helpless place, but my request has been made. 

I’d like a song that reminds me that sometimes we fail, but at least we tried.

(all italicized words from “Does Anybody Hear Her” by Casting Crowns from their album Lifesong.)

He was abandoned at a local business, and after our amazing Animal Control Officers rescued it I got to take a peek at him when he was impounded.  I immediately fell in love with the little 6 week old puppy, his big blue eyes, his soft fur, his spotted nose and ears… I don’t normally melt over dogs, but I totally fell hard for this one.  I called Justin and asked begged him to let me keep it.  I think he was surprised I was asking such a question!  I hadn’t really wanted another dog, but I hadn’t known about this pooch.  Justin, my mother-in-law and Benjamin all came to visit me at work and meet the puppy.  Benjamin and the puppy chased each other around, Benjamin sat down and the puppy crawled into his lap and licked him.  Benjamin laughed.  My heart melted.

So, to make a long cute story a little shorter (there were lots of puppy kisses from the puppy, and puppy eyes pointed at my husband from me), Justin said yes to a new dog!  So the little blue-eyed puppy has a new home.  I told Justin no one was allowed to name him until I got home, but that I kind of liked the name Frank in honor of Ol’ Blue Eyes (whose music I happen to love).  As soon as the puppy got home and introduced to my Father-in-law he said “So are we going to call him Frank?”

That pretty much decided it.  We named him Frank Sinatra (Frankie for short) in honor of his beautiful blue eyes.

Everyone in the family likes him except Lucky (my other dog).  But, Lucky has been an only dog for his whole life (7+ years) so I figure it will take some getting used to.  He did OK when we dog-watched for my cousin a few months ago, so I have high hopes as to his adaptability. 

I forgot how annoying puppies could be though… especially at 3am when they wake up wanting to play and then whine when you put them on the ground.  Oooof.  Whining dogs drive me craaazzy.  Having a puppy really makes me appreciate how great of a dog Lucky is.  He never whines, rarely barks, and really just wants to be loved.  I’m hoping that with a little training and a lot of love that our newest addition will grow to be a great dog too!

Anyways, without further ado, meet Frankie:

When my sister came to live with us, we were still church hunting. I invited her to give us her input on what kind of church we should look for, and she wanted us to find a Baptist church.  So I started keeping an eye open.  Around that same time, I got invited to a birthday party for a little boy – at a Baptist church.  I figured, hey, why not?

So we went. And we were overwhelmed.  Everyone was kind and genuine and it kind of felt like we had come home. 

Interestingly enough, Benjamin did not appear traumatized or exhausted from crying and seemed to have enjoyed himself in the Nursery (if you need to know why that’s awesome, please read my blogs on church hunting).

Afterwards we all agreed: best church yet.

So we kept going and the sermons kept being awesome and we kept enjoying it and being overwhelmed at how awesome everyone seemed to be.  After a few months, it appears we have found a church home. And everyone said: yipee!

In the interest of full disclosure, I’m not going to lie: I still don’t know ANYONES name. I try so hard, but by the time two weeks go by I’ve forgotten them all.  Working every other week significantly cuts down on the time I spend in church on Sunday morning.  I get frustrated that I don’t know people that well yet, but then I remind myself how long it took me to really get to know people at Legacy (1+ year) and I give myself a break.  Being new to a church is hard.

Anyways, all that to say that almost every time we attend the services it’s awesome and relevant I feel like God is speaking to me.

The sermon this last Sunday was on servitude.  I got the feeling the message was primarily aimed at encouraging people to serve within the church, but in my own life it served as an excellent reminder that I am called to serve.

Not only am I called to serve, I’m called to serve with a good attitude.  In fact, if I serve with a bad attitude, there’s really no point in me serving. 

There’s a part of my life that I am actively serving in right now, and sometimes it is very hard to do with a good attitude.  Sometimes I am bitter about it.  Sometimes I tell myself that I deserve better.  Sometimes I feel that I shouldn’t have to serve in such a way that cramps my life and costs me so much. 

But the bottom line is that I am called to love like Jesus loved and serve in a way that glorifies him.  I prayed, long ago, that God would put people in my life that I could help.  I think God finally called me on that prayer.  If I serve begrudgingly and with a bad attitude, who is that helping?  What good is that doing anyone?

If I don’t use this opportunity to reach out and try to practice what I know I should be doing, then I’m putting myself through this misery to no one’s benefit.  I’m not getting blessed, I’m not being effective at helping people, and I’m not growing.  One would even argue that if I could serve with a little more grace, God might help this not be such an uncomfortable process.

So I’m going to try a little more, now that I have had that reminder pushed into my face.  I’m going to try to have grace in the midst of serving, even though sometimes – honestly – it stinks.

Well, no, it is more like she charged me thousands of dollars for a surgery that was supposed to stop my recurring sinus infections that only repaired my deviated septum.

I’m not really sure what I want to tell her tomorrow. I feel like I was promised one thing, given another, and am powerless to do anything about it.  Justin is coming with me and hopefully he will help me tell her how horrible the last few months have been health-wise. A sinus infection that lasts years is terrible. I’m tired of tossing and turning so I can breathe, I’m tired of blowing my nose, I’m tired of taking pain killers every day. I’m just tired of it.

So I will go tomorrow and paint her a picture. We shall see how it goes.

The past few nights I have not slept well at all. You could say I am grieving – and that’s exactly what I am saying – although I don’t have a very good reason to grieve right now. Hmm. I don’t know that I’m wording this very well, let me try again. There’s nothing new that has happened in my life that gives me a reason to be grieving. There.

I kind of feel like this grief may be residual grief that I never really worked through with my folks. Maybe certain things didn’t get dealt with because of the huge big crazy tragedy that was their death. Maybe I didn’t deal with some of the stuff because I was too busy caring for others.

I’ll probably never know.

I know what triggered this, but I won’t elaborate here because the trigger isn’t a part of my story, it belongs to someone else. It’s not important any way. What is important, though, is that I recognize that grief is OK. Even if the grief hits me almost three full years after their death.

So the part of grief that has hit me is this crazy inability to stay asleep. I can’t close my eyes without thinking about terribly depressing subjects and seeing floods of “what ifs” race through my consciousness. When I finally do wrestle myself to sleep, I wake with a start at the slightest disturbance around me. I bolt up, heart racing, and take forever to get back to sleep. As you can imagine, this has been slightly irritating.

So what do I do?

I recognize that this is normal. I recognize that grief is weird and strange and affects everyone differently and maybe this is how I have to grieve – one piece at a time – so I don’t fall apart at the seams. I recognize that my mind has to process things in its own time. I recognize that my job is to sit here, tired, and remember that through all this – the grief and the pain and the sleepless nights – I am not alone. I recognize that this sucks, but that it’s part of life. And I blog about it, so that maybe someone out there googling how to deal with grief will find these words and know that they, too, are not alone.

Speaking of organization, Money Saving Mom just wrote a new book! It’s called The Money Saving Mom’s Budget. 

Beautiful!

It’s one of those books that I’m going to buy as soon as I open up my budget for some book shopping! In the meantime though, I think I’d really like to read her older book, “21 Days to a More Disciplined Life.” 

I think being more disciplined will help with organization, yes? Maybe it will just help me not buy her new book.  I guess then she’s kind of hurting herself if that’s the case… but I’m sure she thought of that and decided it was worth the risk!

Anyways, if you want to buy the book (for me OR for yourself) feel free to go to follow this link to happiness.  Ahem.  Or send it to me.

Whatever!

Can’t wait till he gets the hang of steering!

Times like this I really wish I had an actual camcorder instead of my phone – the quality just isn’t the same. If I’m extra lucky I’ll catch him tomorrow during the daylight hours. I want to follow him around with a camera and document everything so I can watch it when I’m 90. I don’t want to forget these precious moments~!

Ahem.

Benjamin, I thought you were fun at 1, but I had NO idea how much fun you would be at 18 months. Seriously, kid, I realize now that this is what parents live for. This age right here. I might say that again in a few months or years, but your Daddy and I have enjoyed the heck out of you recently!

Your vocabulary has completely exploded and you communicate so much with us. Here are some words we hear a lot around the house:

Joots (Juice), Meel (Milk), Waber (Water), Mo’ (More), Uhh (used for both Up and Down, it really means “change of view, please”), Ludey (Lucky), Daw (Dog), Puh-ee (Puppy), Pope (Soap), Doir (Door), Ball, Truck, Car, Bike-el (Bicycle), Cake (I blame the holidays for this…), Cooey (Cookie. Totally my bad.), Chalk (Chocolate. Likes to use this to upgrade milk), Ap-pul (Apple), Nug-ee (Chicken nuggets), Thocks (Socks), Tooes (Shoes), Toes, Churt (Shirt), At (Hat), Pants, Top (Stop – usually used when Lucky is barking at the neighbors “top Ludey!”), Pool (as in Pool table), Blocks, Tye-er (Tiger), Hoar (Horse, with accompanying NEIGH noise), Cow (with accompanying MOO noise), Nuggle (Snuggle), and Boom (Fireworks).

There’s so many more. You can call everyone in the house by name and can usually tell the dog to stop doing what he’s doing. You demand food and drink on a fairly constant basis and ANY TIME you see an apple you become OBSESSED with it until you have it in your hands. It is ridiculous!

We have this awesome hat that is the face of a Tiger, and we have a house rule that anyone that puts the hat on has to pretend they are a tiger. It’s pretty adorable. You came up to me the other day holding the hat out to me, “Tye-er?” you asked, and of course I obliged. I put the hat on and instantly my face turned to a growl… I threw my hands in the air and growled “Tiger Mommy! Rawr!” and you squealed and ran away… I chased you around the house until I caught you and tickled you until you could barely breathe. Then I put the hat on you and said “Tiger Jams!” and you roared at me. I kind of melted a little bit.

For Christmas, we got you a basketball hoop and some books. You love the basketball but can’t really throw it in a particular direction just yet. You like “Mr. Brown can Moo, can you?” because Mommy makes lots of funny noises when she reads it.

I bought you a beautiful book about Noah’s Ark that has some sad stuff in it. Stuff like Noah shooing away some bugs (because he already had two) and elephants standing sadly outside of the ark as the rain fell and the water rose. It got bad reviews online, but I kind of like the idea of it telling the story honestly. Because there are things about my faith that are not easy, and I don’t want to pretend that they don’t exist. I don’t want to show you the world through rose colored glasses, I want to introduce it to you slowly, but honestly. I look forward to sharing the all the different aspects of my faith with you one day.

Anyways, your Nanny and Papa got you this awesome Power Wheels 4×4 ATV for Christmas. You can sit on it and steer and it has a button that when you press it, it goes Vroooom!

You, my dear son, staunchly refuse to press the button! You’re terrified of it! It is a source of frustration and amusement for us. You’ll climb a stepladder, dance on the couch, demand to stand on the pool table…but you won’t press GO on your power wheels. Crazy, crazy Jams.

I have this picture in my head of you I want to remember forever: You, wearing a diaper, right after bath. Hair standing straight up just like your daddy. Sitting all the way back in our pink rocking chair in your room. You’re holding a small child’s bible and a teddy bear in your lap and looking up at me expectantly. Your head is cocked to the side and you say, with question in your voice, “ree? ree?” Yes, Benjamin, of course we can read!

You dance ALL THE TIME. There is a 900% increase in dancing in the house since you turned one. If the music has a beat, you will be jammin to it… period. End of story. It is awesome to watch your dance moves change as you get older. You’ve recently added in arm movements and you really like to pump your fist in the air triumphantly while dancing. I love it. You get so happy when music comes on it’s hard not to get swept up into the mood.

I don’t want you to think it’s all roses and butterflies, but even when you’re upset about something you’re pretty adorable. If you don’t get your way (like, for instance, last night, when I wouldn’t let you drink my Airborne) you sort of collapse on to the floor and cry pathetically. You usually just sort of whimper for a few minutes, but last night you were angry so your wails were a little more pronounced. Right now we’re trying not to react so you don’t get worse, but sometimes it’s really hard not to giggle at you. Sorry, I know that’s not the politically appropriate answer, but what can I say? It’s hilarious when your little lip protrudes and quivers and you throw your head into your arms and collapse on the ground. I’ve started trying to teach you – “I know you’re upset, Benjamin, but you can’t hit the dog with a stick.” “Benjamin, even though you don’t want to go to bed you can’t hit Daddy in the face.” and so on, and so on. Does it help? I don’t know. Time will tell. Right now I’m practicing being patient.

I think one of my favorite things about you right now is how happy you make your Daddy. He absolutely loves playing with you. You guys wrestle (and I have to hold my tongue sometimes because I think he’s too rough, but I think that is a Mommy’s job, to worry…) and he throws you around and tickles you and you squeal so loud. You throw your head back and laugh at him sometimes and then he does the same thing and you guys are both so happy I just want to cry.

We went to Houston for New Years and everyone loved commenting on how well behaved you were. Even though you had to sit in the car for longer than you would have liked, you were a trooper. You absolutely loved the fireworks on New Years Eve – you stayed up till 11:30 and fell asleep in your Daddy’s arms outside listening to and watching the “boom.” The day before, my heart had broken just a tiny bit when we left you in the bedroom alone at Aunt Lynn’s and you woke up without us and started crying. Poor thing, you were so upset! Took us forever to calm you down. I think that is part of the reason why, when we got back from Houston yesterday, I took you to my bed to snuggle at bedtime. I had to be up early for work (4am, ugh!) and Daddy was going to put you to bed. That’s usually my job and I didn’t want to miss out on snuggle time, so you came to my room. I got all nice and comfy and tried to make you nice and comfy too… you immediately flailed around until your feet were in my face and your head was resting on my knee. But you were happy and I was too. Those few moments of peace are treasured and I want to remember them when you’re 16 and telling me how you know everything!

I heard that 18 month olds could be pains, but so far you’ve only done the expected amount of fussing and fighting. I’m sure more fighting and testing is on the way, but in the meantime I’m going to enjoy this sweet boy who squeals with joy whenever he sees me.

Love,
Mama