I found several unfinished drafts in my draft folder of my blog.  I decided to publish them as is. They are what they are.

From August 4, 2008:

Scars

I had a dream a couple nights ago. I dreamed that my brother had came home, and I was seeing him for the first time since all that happened. I dreamed that he showed me his scars on his arm and wrist. I woke up thinking about this, and I thought a lot all day long about scars.

We get wounds that leave scars in a lot of different ways. Sometimes, we wound ourselves on purpose. Self-inflicted wounds that leave scars that speak to us of hurt and pain and shame and anger. Sometimes, other people wound us. They wound us on purpose and they wound us without really meaning to. Those wounds leave scars. Sometimes, our wounds come about by no one’s doing. They just happen. Accidents, sicknesses, births, etc. They can all wound us and we can’t do anything about it. It’s just something that happens. Even these wounds leave scars.

If you’re reading this and trying to figure out where I’m going…if I’m speaking of literal wounds or figurative…well, I’m speaking of both. The same principles that apply to literal, physical wounds can also apply to metaphorical and emotional wounds. Regardless of why or how the wound was caused, if it’s a bad wound, it’s going to scar.

The thing I was thinking about is that the difference in the severity of the scar is in how the wound is dealt with. Even the most gruesome, self-inflicted wound can heal to leave a scar that is not that bad if it’s treated properly. If you get the proper medical attention…soothing ointment, stitches to close the wound, etc….and keep it infection free, you could end up with a rather minor scar. At the same time, you could trip and cut yourself on something unintentionally, slap a band-aid on it, and it scar pretty badly.

When I was a little girl, I cut my knee open, and, because I was terrified of the thought of getting stitches, my mom gave in to me and just put butterfly band-aids on it to close it up. My knee healed just fine, but it left a pretty bad scar to this day. When I was older, I dropped a blade on the top of my foot, and cut it open. I got stitches in this cut, and, today, you can barely see the scar. The wounds themselves were probably pretty equal in the size and depth of the cut, but it was the way that they were treated that made the difference in how severe the resulting scar ended up. The same thing applies to emotional wounds. It’s how they are treated that determine the scar that you are left with.

So how do you treat these emotional wounds? Whether your emotional wounds are self inflicted (addictions, self-injury, etc.), inflicted on you by others (physical, verbal, emotional, or sexual abuse, etc.), or wounds that just happen outside of your control (miscarriage, accidents, loss of loved one, disease, etc.), they have to be treated if we are to live fulfilling lives. How do we do this? I ask the question because I, as well as some people I love a lot, have wounds that need healing. I can’t leave them to fester and scar. I need to deal with them.

As I contemplated all of these things yesterday, some verses came to my mind. I believe God was answering my heart’s wondering.

Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53:4-5

Our wounds are healed by his wounds!

He came to this earth, lived, and died to bind up our wounds. To bring our healing.

He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds. Psalm 147:3

I found several unfinished drafts in my draft folder of my blog.  I decided to publish them as is. They are what they are.

From July 2, 2008:

They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love

Lately, one subject has captured my thoughts over and over. Love. Not romantic, candy and flowers love, but Christian love. The love that Christ has commanded us to love with. The love with which he loved us. He really did command it. He actually said that it was to be our distinguishing characteristic.

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35

A Jars of Clay song started this whole ball rolling. I was driving down the road, and I was listening to the “Redemption Songs” album. On this album was their version of a hymn called, “They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love”.

We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
And we pray that our unity will one day be restored
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
Yeah they’ll know we are Christians by our love

We will work with each other, we will work side by side
We will work with each other, we will work side by side
And we’ll guard each man’s dignity and save each man’s pride
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
Yeah, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.

The words to this hymn seem to be emblazoned on my heart. I’ve not been able to get away from them. Everything in my life lately has pointed me back to this subject. Sometimes to my shame…in conviction…I see that my life does not line up with it. Sometimes in my pain…when others have hurt me…I see that it is an area that Christianity as a whole has dropped the ball on. Sometimes, in a moment of clarity, I see that what this world we live in needs is to see some disciples of Christ living out a life of love and fellowship. How would it change the face of Christianity if it became obvious to anyone who’s path crosses that of one proclaiming Christ that our faith changes us…and changes how we live.

An Easter family photo, minus Daddy who had to work.

Everyone’s looking at the camera in this one.

Uncooperative boys!

Three out of four ain’t bad.

All my babies.

Sweet sisters!

I found several unfinished drafts in my draft folder of my blog.  I decided to publish them as is. They are what they are.

From April 16, 2008;

I wonder if everyone finds themselves where I am tonight. I’m sad, but with no good reason. My heart is heavy.

I so often find myself dwelling on things that are over and done with. An event, a feeling, a memory…all the ghosts from my history come around every now and then. They float around my mind…distracting me. It’s not that they have any great power over me, because they don’t. Sins from the past are forgiven. The dust has long since settled over the errant path that led me in the wrong directions. And, yet, forgiven does not mean forgotten. Dust that has settled was still stirred. So I find myself here. Contemplative. Remembering.

The Lord your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.

youtube: he will rejoice Trevor Morgan / Glory Revealed

Today is the day that I get slightly freaked out about the seemingly very real possibility that I may actually lose my mind.

Today is the day that I say, “Holy crap! I have four kids!”

Yesterday was the day that Chris went back to work. It must have been the calm before the storm.

So far this morning, I woke up and changed an incredibly nasty pull-up. Owen is quickly approaching three, and thinks using the potty is highly overrated. Immediately upon finishing changing him, Miss Abigail needed her diaper changed. Hers was much less nasty. Actually, it wasn’t bad at all. A two week old’s diaper is much better than a two and a half year old’s. Anyway, shortly after that, while I was nursing Abby, Elijah knocked a bag of flour out of the freezer. Since I was feeding his baby sister, I asked Kyra to sweep the flour into a pile for me. She was happily doing this, but didn’t think to inform me that Owen was walking through the flour at the same time, dragging it with his feet all over the kitchen floor. So, when I finished feeding Abby, I went into the kitchen and freaked out. I spent ten minutes or so cleaning up the flour, and sent the boys to their room to play while Kyra did her schoolwork. 

I was feeling highly frustrated, so I put Abby Jo in her basket, told Kyra to “see to her if she starts fussing, but DON’T PICK HER UP AGAIN!”, and went outside to sit on the cold porch steps for a few minutes while Amy Jo prayed for me over the phone. Feeling slightly better after a few moments of prayer, I came inside, sat down to nurse Abby again, and, no sooner had she latched on and settled in to nurse, I heard a loud crash from the boy’s room. I sent Kyra to assess the damage. They had managed to break the glass globe on the ceiling fan….broken glass all over an incredibly messy room. I moved the boys to Kyra’s room, and have yet to clean up the glass.

So, yes, today is the day…the day I have to get my stuff together or lose my ever-loving mind. 

Also, today is the day I pray for God to “lay it on the hearts” of some close family members to come pick up the big kids for a while.

Now, off I go…Abby Jo is crying for me.

In Abby’s birth story, I wrote about Amy Jo coming to be with me. It meant a lot to me for several different reasons. One of which being that I didn’t have any close friends when I had my other kids, and this time I had a best friend willing to drive nearly 600 miles to stay with me for nearly two weeks. I was overjoyed to have her with me.

She got here on the Monday before I had Abigail…the day my grandmother passed away. Chris and I were at the hospital all day long. Amy actually got to our house two hours or so before we got home. When we got home, Chris went to pick up the kids at his mom’s house, and I sat on the couch and cried on Amy’s shoulder. My grandmother’s death was just the first of the heartbreaking events for my family that week. The same week, my Aunt Debbie had major surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from her mouth…that was actually the very next day after her mother passed away… and my brother and sister-in-law lost their baby that we were all so excited about. Amidst all of the sadness, it was a Godsend to have my best friend with me for support.

We had a couple of fun days before my c-section. On Tuesday, we went and got manicures/pedicures…partly as a birthday gift for Amy, since her birthday is the 8th, and partly so my toes looked pretty for my nurses. On Wednesday, Amy went with me to my last (pointless) doctor’s appointment in Knoxville, and then we went to lunch with one of Amy’s friends that lives in Knoxville, Misti, who is a Chaplain Candidate like Chris and Amy. That was a lot of fun. I always enjoy meeting Amy’s friends, old and new. After lunch, we went shopping for fun things like nursing bras and breast pumps. I saved all of that kind of shopping till Amy got here…partly to spare Christopher from going with me and partly because I hate it and it seemed like Amy should go through the trauma of it with me.  That night, we went to church, and Amy got to come to our Youth Service that Chris and I recently started for the young people on Wednesday nights. 

Wednesday was when it started…first the nurse and doctor at my appointment and then some random people from church. A question that turned into a slightly amusing theme: “Are you sisters?” 

When Amy went to the hospital with me, she stayed with me pretty much the entire time, with the exception of while I was in the operating room and when she went to the cafeteria. She talked the nurse into numbing my hand before they put the iv in, held my hand when they did it, and gave Chris dirty looks when he was being a brat. She leaned close to my ear and prayed for me when they placed my epidural, and she talked to Chris about his basketball picks when they were doing totally embarassing things to me. We spent a lot of hours lying on my hospital bed admiring a brand new beautiful baby, and she spent a lot of hours trying not to be funny and make me laugh, so as to spare me the pain. She remembered to ask the nurses all the things that I forgot because I was so doped up, and she packed all our stuff up on the day we left. She played the role so well, that from the very first nurse we saw, every single person that cared for me asked us, “Are you sisters?”

Every time someone asked us that, we paused. We obviously are not really sisters, but it felt like it. So we would pause, and then say, “No, we’re best friends.” It seemed like there should be a better answer to the question, though. I tried out, “We might as well be.” and then, at Amy’s suggestion, I gave, “We tend to think so.” a try. When we said we weren’t really sisters, a lot of the nurses said that we acted like sisters, and one even said we looked like sisters. It must have been the freckles and the fact that we’re the same size.

I don’t think we’ll ever be able to hear someone ask us that question when we’re together from now on without grinning, because we just heard it so much. I have a better answer now, though. Next time someone asks, I’m just going to say, “Yes.”

Thanks for being my sister, Amy Jo. I love you!

I let Elijah have the last bit of (flat) Diet Dr Pepper in the two liter bottle in the fridge…because I’m nice like that…and Kyra asked him for a sip of it. To which he responded by chugging the DDP with no intent of sharing.

Kyra: “Jesus doesn’t like what you’re doing, Elijah. You’re supposed to share.”

Elijah: <chug, chug, chug>

Kyra: “Elijah! Jesus really wants you to share with me.”

Elijah: <takes a deep breath to get a little oxygen after all the smug chugging> “Well, God doesn’t like you because you’re not doing your schoolwork!”

Kyra: “That doesn’t mean God doesn’t like me! He just doesn’t like that I’m not doing my schoolwork. He still wants me to have a drink of your diet dr pepper.”

Elijah’s 5th Birthday Party

Abby Jo’s Birthday

Abby Jo’s Birthday – 2

Froot Loops

April 4, 2009

Abby Jo