Category: Friends Stuff

Jun 20

Mother Daughter Talks

(Written in February, 2014)

The other day I found out about some mean girl stuff that was going on and got to have a long talk with The Oldest One, who turns 10 in April. She’s growing so fast. Always a wise old soul, she’s been a breeze since she was born, aside from being a rough baby. In ways, she has raised me more than I have raised her. Quick to forgive and never without a smile, she’s a parent’s dream.

She’s also incredibly faithful, and her thirst for more of God always takes me off guard. Baptized at 9 this year after years of asking me, she is serious in her faith and rarely waivers.

She’s also every bit of a people pleaser, which worried me as she grew and the other day, proved that I wasn’t very off in my concern that, although she is incredibly strong, her desire to please may cause issues down the road with peer pressure.

That isn’t it, y’all. You have to click here to read the rest!

Dec 06

And Then There Was Angela

There are times in life where you are forced to remember someone, and sometimes we have a tendency to romanticize those memories.

This is not one of those times.

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Angela was one of my coworkers, and as I sit down to even attempt to describe her, I find it to be a task proving nearly impossible. With an infectious smile and laugh, you couldn’t be anywhere near Angela without smiling. We always knew when Angela was here, because the general feeling of the office was…different. Lighter. Happier. Easier. Her eyes had a genuine sparkle in them; a sparkle that danced when she spoke of her two sons. She was in love with motherhood and her children; it was a role that she fit into perfectly. She was there for every doctor’s appointment, field trip, Boy Scout meeting (which she was a Leader of). Angela was full of grace and radiated happiness and pride. Even when things were bad, she never let it affect how she treated people; even looking at her, you would never know that she was going through hard times that would make any other person want to throw in the towel.

That isn’t it, y’all. You have to click here to read the rest!

Aug 31

My Rachel

Me and Rachel

Me and Rachel

I’m still around, just haven’t been in a writing mode I guess. It’s funny, because once you actually announce change, you get hit from all angles with just…tests. And tested I have been. This week has been hard from many angles, but nothing I have experienced can come close to the biggest part of this week.

My dear friend had a very serious medical procedure for a horrific disease called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy. It’s an incurable, excruciatingly painful disease.

It’s in her shoulder and arm (and her dominant one at that), and to add to it, she also has a torn rotator cuff, which cannot be repaired because of the damage from the RSD. And she’s working through all of this, too (and I don’t mean mentally, though that too, I mean she goes to work everyday). And I know she must get comments that are well-meaning but frustrating. It’s not like any other chronic pain disease; not by a long-shot. On the McGill Pain Index, pain is scaled. A bone fracture is a 17, non-terminal cancer is a 26. Chronic back pain is a 30. Unmedicated childbirth is a 37. The pain from RSD, which is constant and without end in sight, is a 42. The wind from a rolled-down window causes excruciating pain; so does her own clothes.

That isn’t it, y’all. You have to click here to read the rest!

Apr 26

The Church of First Responders

No bones about it, last weekend was the hardest weekend of my little family’s life. The marriage retreat was designed to bring us closer, and it did, but it wasn’t all surface stuff. It forced us to dig deep into the junk, the stuff that had desperately tried to come to the light that had been pushed down.

On Tuesday, I watched the Boston bombings and saw that very familiar site; the police, firefighters, and good Samaritans running toward the carnage, the danger, the chaos, to help in any way that they could. It didn’t matter if they had training, or experience, they wanted to help on any way that they could.

I thought back at our marriage retreat, and that night that all the junk came to the surface.

I’ll tell you, before joining our church, I was not keen on Christians. I didn’t trust them, because they are gossipy and fake. And while I felt that way before, that’s totally not the experience we’ve had there. It is all laid out on the table, junk, screw-ups, sins. It’s all out, it’s all real.

That isn’t it, y’all. You have to click here to read the rest!

Apr 02

Change

I look at Facebook and see folks on there that post a lot of the same things. People are fake, no one cares about you but yourself, people don’t mind their own business, there’s drama every where they turn.

And as I read through my newsfeed, I see the stuff that’s shared. You know what it is, you’ve seen it. It’s hard when you’re used to a lifestyle to see that the common denominator is…well, you. My past life (and by that, I mean 10 years ago), was much different than my current life in that aspect. I think I recognize that some a lot of times, I’m the problem, not the solution.

I remember complaining to my mother once that I had a college professor that made super inappropriate, embarrassing comments about my chest in the middle of lecture, and it happened weekly. My mother would gently say “Perhaps you could dress differently.”

That isn’t it, y’all. You have to click here to read the rest!